India (Commonwealth) _Johnson & Johnson and Indian drugmaker Lupin will sell their versions of the tuberculosis medicine bedaquiline at a much lower price in low- and middle-income nations, according to a global anti-tuberculosis group on Wednesday.
The Stop TB Partnership, which is supported by the United Nations, stated that J&J’s new pricing of $130 and Lupin’s price of $194 for a six-month course of therapy represented 55% and 33% price reductions, respectively.
Bedaquiline is one of three novel tuberculosis (TB) medications produced in more than a half-century, and it is an important component of approved treatment regimens for drug-resistant TB infections.
This historic price drop will increase access to this life-saving treatment and keep us on track to eradicate tuberculosis by 2030, according to Atul Gawande, assistant administrator of the US Agency for International Development’s Global Health Bureau.
The medicine will be made available at a lower cost through the Stop TB Partnership’s Global medicine Facility, the world’s largest procurer of TB treatments. J&J, which distributes bedaquiline under the brand name Sirturo, agreed in July with the Stop TB Partnership to supply generic versions of the treatment through the Global treatment Facility.
That deal came after advocacy organizations and author John Green chastised the healthcare behemoth for enforcing medication patents in a number of countries. J&J has stated that it is incorrect to claim that its patents impede access to the medicine.
On Wednesday, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), often known as Doctors without Borders, hailed the significant price decrease, saying it “finally brings the price closer to the estimated generic price of $0.50 per day.”
According to Christophe Perrin, TB advocacy pharmacist with MSF’s Access Campaign, J&J could boost access to the treatment even further by abandoning its secondary patents on bedaquiline in all high-burden countries.
Desh Bandhu Gupta, a chemistry professor at BITS-Pilani in Rajasthan, founded India’s Lupin in 1968. Gupta borrowed Rs. 5000 from his wife to start the business. The company was able to launch its production plant for producing folic acid and iron tablets for the Indian government’s mother and child health program thanks to additional funding from the Central Bank of India. Later, Lupin began producing anti-tuberculosis (TB) treatments, which accounted for 36% of the company’s sales at one point, making it the world’s largest TB drug manufacturer.
In July 2015, the business announced its intention to pay $880 million for Gavis Pharmaceuticals and Novel Laboratories. Desh Bandhu Gupta, the founder, died in June 2017 and was succeeded as chairman by his wife, Manju Deshbandhu Gupta.
In 2019, the US FDA placed multiple Lupin drug plants on notice for quality issues, indicating that future Lupin drug applications may be denied. Lupin agreed to purchase Mediso, a French pharmaceutical business, in May 2023.
Lupin’s operations span the whole pharmaceutical value chain, from branded and generic formulations to APIs, sophisticated drug delivery technologies, and biotechnology. The company’s pharmaceuticals are available in 70 countries, with a footprint that includes advanced markets such as the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia, as well as emerging markets such as India, the Philippines, and South Africa, to mention a few.
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is a global American pharmaceutical and medical technology firm headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey, that is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the company is rated 40th on the 2023 Fortune 500 list of the largest corporations in the United States. Johnson & Johnson employs around 130,000 people worldwide and is led by Joaquin Duato, the company’s current chairman and CEO.
