Pharma Giant’s TB Drug Decision Welcomed, But Not All Developing Countries Benefit

… According to global health charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), J&J currently prices the drug at USD1.50/day for an adult treatment (USD272/six months). But with scale-up and unrestricted generic competition, it says the price of bedaquiline could get closer to USD0.50 per day. … But even if the deal does bring the price down to that level, some of the countries which would benefit from purchasing the drug at a lower price will not be able to as they have been excluded from it. Nine countries in the Eastern European and Central Asian region, which have some of the highest TB burdens in the world, are not covered by the deal because of an exclusive supply agreement J&J has with a Russian pharma firm. … The exclusion has infuriated senior health officials in some of the excluded countries. In a rare instance of its kind, the national tuberculosis (TB) programme (NTP) of Belarus sent an open letter to J&J demanding urgent action to improve equitable access to bedaquiline in Belarus, and all other countries with a high burden of TB. “It is completely unfair that we will be excluded from this deal,” Dr Alena Skrahina, Deputy National TB Programme Manager, Belarus, told IPS. Another high-burden country that will not be able to take advantage is South Africa. The country’s national procurement rules mean that it obtains bedaquiline directly from J&J.