AHF applauds Gilead for licensing AIDS drugs to Medicines Patent Pool

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) today lauded Gilead Sciences for being the first major AIDS drug company to share some drug patents with a new international Medicines Patent Pool, a move that will help ensure access to newer AIDS treatments in developing countries. According to the New York Times, in an article today by Donald G. McNeil Jr., 'Gilead Sciences announced Tuesday that it would license four of its AIDS and hepatitis drugs to the pool.' The Times noted, 'The pool was created last year, but drugmakers resisted it, wanting to control quality and protect rights to future profits from middle-income countries. Until this week, the only participant was the National Institutes of Health, which turned over a partial patent on an obscure AIDS drug.'

"We commend Gilead Sciences and chairman and CEO John Martin for being first among all the major AIDS drug companies to share some AIDS and hepatitis drug patents with the Medicines Patent Pool, a generous gesture that will do doubt ensure and improve access to newer AIDS treatments in many developing countries," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "We urge other drug companies to follow Gilead's lead and share their patents with the pool. Unfortunately, one problem is that Gilead's agreement specifically excludes middle-income countries such as Mexico, which has been hard-hit by the epidemic and could benefit from improved access to these drugs via the pool. We would have preferred Gilead to include middle-income countries in the patent agreement and now ask that they instead reduce prices directly for such AIDS drugs in hard-hit middle-income countries."

In addition, many of the developing countries that are likely to benefit from the patent pool already have access to generic versions of the medicines included in these new patent agreements, or will soon, as the market develops. The pool may expedite this process for newer medicines, but the precedent on pricing and access has already been set that dictates Africa and low-income countries get the lowest prices.

Source: AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)