From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi
A leading global HIV/AIDS organization, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, (AHF), and other stakeholders have called on a pharmaceutical company based in the United States, Gilead, to end it’s monopolistic and sharp practices of greed and profiteering from drugs meant for the most vulnerable, ill people globally.
The foundation wants Gilead to stop evergreening patents on existing HIV/AIDS drugs like Truvada and open the license for the generic production of the hepatitis C drug, Harvoni, to all low- and middle-income countries without exception.
In a statement made available to Daily Sun, the Country Programme Director, AHF Nigeria, Dr. Echey Ijezie, who noted that evergreening is exploitation, not innovation said the company is one of the worst offenders of putting profits before people’s lives.
According to him, Gilead has generated billions of dollars in profit by maintaining a monopoly on some most effective and well tolerated anti retroviral drug, generating over $27 billion in revenue in 2021 alone and paid its CEO over $19 million in compensation.
“At the same time, Gilead has priced several of its HIV and hepatitis C drugs out of reach for many people, refused to register some drugs in developing countries, and consistently blocks attempts to introduce cheaper, generic versions of its medicines.
Ijezie who urged the company to put lives before profits said “Gilead must be held accountable for arbitrarily placing a price on who lives and who dies by keeping the most effective, modern and lifesaving medicines out of reach of millions of people in low- and middle-income countries.
He said AHF is taking its grassroots campaign global to raise awareness about Gilead’s shameful practices and calling on the company to sell or license remdesivir for generic distribution at a nonprofit price for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They also want the company to “license technology for the production of treatment for cryptococcal meningitis to generic manufacturers and link executive compensation to the impact on positive public health outcomes and access to medicines in developing countries.”
Earlier, at a meeting with stakeholders, the Director for Advocacy and Marketing for African Bureau, Olukemi Gbadamosi, accused Gilead of exploiting patent monopolies on blockbuster drugs to enrich itself and its shareholders.
She regretted that “The research and development are often funded by U.S. taxpayers, but for their generosity, the public is rewarded with astronomical drug prices.
She said “For example, a highly effective hepatitis C drug costs $1,000 per pill, and a 12-week course of treatment has a retail price of over $90,000 in the U.S.
“A generic version of the same drug costs only $4 per pill in India, but according to Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, Gilead has excluded 50 middle-income countries; Jamaica, Tunisia, the Philippines, Ukraine, and Venezuela, among others, from access to the generic, discounted price.”
She noted that while Gilead holds the patent on remdesivir in 70 countries worldwide, with no production sites outside the U.S., the company has ignored calls demanding it to expand access to its patented COVID-19 treatment candidate drug remdesivir.
She expressed fears of AHF, MSF and their stakeholders that if Gilead is allowed to continue taking advantage of the patent monopoly to limit access to the drug and prevent generic competition, millions of people with COVID-19 and those living with HIV would be at risk of dying due to lack of access to effective treatments
“Patent evergreening, is where pharmaceutical companies are able to extend drug patents by making small changes to the formulations and re-patenting them as new and improved drugs, despite only making small, incremental changes that do not constitute a major innovation. This keeps affordable and better drugs from reaching low- and middle-income countries around the world.
“As a leading global HIV/AIDS organization with over 1.7 million patients in care across 45 countries, it is our responsibility at AHF to take a stand and call out Gilead so that governments and decision-makers everywhere put collective pressure on it to prioritize lives over obscenely high profits.”
Stakeholders represented at the meeting include Nigeria Network of Religious Leaders Living with HIV/AIDS, (NINERELA), Network of people Living with HIV and AIDS in Nigeria, (NEPWAN), Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP), Alliance for the Survival of COVID-19 and Beyond, (ASCAB), and Civil Society for HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (CiSHAN).