ViiV Healthcare joins patent pool for cheaper AIDS drugs
ViiV Healthcare, a public health joint venture between GlaxoSmithKline, Shionogi and Pfizer, has signed up to the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) to provide greater access to affordable AIDS treatments in developing countries.
ViiV will grant Geneva-based foundation MPP a voluntary license for paediatric versions of its anti-retroviral treatment abacavir in 118 countries, subject to regulatory approval.
MPP is funded by health financing system UNITAID and was formed in July 2010 to bring down the cost of HIV treatments.
Approximately 3.4 million children have HIV worldwide, but the World Health Organization estimates that only 562,000 of them have access to the treatment they need because of a shortage of low-cost, child-friendly medicines.
As well as licensing abacavir, ViiV said it will be working with MPP to develop new paediatric treatments.
Greg Perry, executive director of MPP, said in a statement that the pool provides a “win-win-win solution” for pharmaceutical companies.
“It provides an innovative new business model for the pharmaceutical industry to contribute to global health, it aids low-cost, quality medicines manufacturers by allowing them easier access to the market and most importantly, it allows people living with HIV … timely access to life-saving treatments," he said.
Dominique Limit, CEO of ViiV, said the agreement with MPP builds on 13 existing licenses granted to generics partners, and a range of initiatives supported by the company’s Paediatric Innovation Seed Fund.
“The overarching goal of our efforts is to improve the lives of children living with HIV, and to help make ViiV Healthcare’s medicines available to them,” he added.
Liz Cohen, a partner at Bristows LLP in London, said the patent pool system benefits pharmaceutical companies because it allows them to give drugs to patients who wouldn’t normally have access to them within a regulated environment and still receive an income from doing so, but added:
“Terms and conditions will be standardised across licenses to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. This will restrict the control the patentee usually has over the terms of any license it grants. Under normal circumstances, such licenses will also need to be carefully monitored to ensure that the licensee does not act outside the terms of their license under this system.”
Cohen said it would not be surprising to see other pharma companies follow ViiV’s lead. “Rather like publishing clinical trial data, once one company agrees to do it, it puts pressure on competitors to do the same. From a PR perspective, I would expect it to be used by pharma companies who have signed up as a distinguishing factor to prove their corporate responsibility commitment,” she added.
