I want a TB test that works for me
Latest News

Heat-stable ritonavir approved, ending treatment stranglehold for people living with HIV/AIDSread more

 

Make It Happen Campaign Update: UNITAID Board still discussing finer details of the Patent Pool Entity read more

 

New European Parliament Working Group on Innovation & Access launches with support of Access Campaign  read more

 

U.S. health care legislation could limit access read more

 

MSF responds to World Health Organization’s new HIV treatment guidelines read more

 

MSF sends letter to EU Ministers of Health regarding antibiotic resistance read more

 

 

 





Merck & Co

Company: Merck & Co
Headquarters: New Jersey, USA

These are the drug patents we want Merck to put in the pool and why patients need them:

Efavirenz (EFV)
Brand name: Stocrin / Sustiva
Efavirenz is particularly important for people with HIV who are also infected with tuberculosis because it reacts less with the drugs needed to treat TB than other antiretrovirals of the same class. In some parts of Africa, the rate of co-infection with TB is up to 90% highlighting the importance of this drug in those areas.

Raltegravir (RAL)
Brand name: Isentress
This new drug comes from a fantastic new class of HIV drugs recently invented called integrase inhibitors (IIs). Raltegravir hit the western markets in 2007 and hasn’t been used at all yet in developing countries. That means there’s no cross-resistance with other antiretrovirals currently in use and it is therefore invaluable as a drug to treat patients who have developed resistance to two or more earlier treatment courses of HIV drugs.  Crucially too, it doesn’t need the addition of an (expensive) booster to make it work effectively, has very few interactions with other drugs and doesn’t produce too many side effects. Right now the price set by Merck is US$ 1113 per patient per year for the poorest countries making it completely unaffordable.  Putting this drug in the patent pool would allow generic version of this drug to be developed and save the lives of many patients who have run out of treatment options.

Fixed-dose combinations
Merck also co-holds the patents on combination drugs. These patents should go in the pool:

Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine/efavirenz
Brand name: Atripla
Merck owns the joint patent with Gilead and Bristol-Myers Squibb on this widely used and effective triple combination therapy. Fixed-dose combinations are two or three drugs combined into one easy to take pill that can be taken twice or even just once a day. Atripla is really useful in that it only has to be taken just once a day. These triple combination pills have revolutionised HIV treatment through simplifying an incredibly complex treatment. This has meant that it’s been possible to scale up treatment much more widely in developing countries. For this reason, the patents on this combination drug must go in the pool.