TB survivors challenge patent to end J&J monopoly
- In an attempt to ensure that anti-TB drug Bedaquiline – which is safer and more effective –is made affordable and accessible to everybody with drug resistant TB (DR-TB), two tuberculosis survivors from India and South Africa have filed a patent challenge against Johnson and Johnson’s application to extend the patent over the drug.
- Bedaquiline is a drug used to treat TB patients with bacteria that are resistant to other anti-TB drugs and thus suffer from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
- The J&J patent application is being challenged on the grounds that the new salt form of Bedaquiline, does not merit patenting under India’s Patents Act, 1970 as it is a minor reformulation of the drug without any increase in therapeutic efficacy and is a mere act of patent evergreening.
- In India, the high price of Bedaquiline is a significant barrier for the government to make it available to all patients with drug resistant TB thus exposing patients to less effective drugs with severe side effects.
