Victory for TB patients

THERE was good news for India on the eve of World Tuberculosis Day. Putting a stop to pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson’s monopoly over a key tuberculosis drug, bedaquiline, whose patent J&J holds till July this year, the India Patent Office (IPO) on Thursday rejected the company’s application for an extension of the patent’s period. Not only is this decision patient-friendly, it also sends a strong message to the pharma firms to desist from resorting to the legally inadmissible practice of ‘evergreening’, whereby they endeavour to extend the patent beyond the primary stipulated period with an eye on minting more money.

Notably, J&J’s evergreening bid was challenged by two TB survivors and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). The IPO decision paves the way for drug-resistant TB patients to have easier access to this lifesaving medicine at much cheaper rates. As generic drug manufacturers get the nod to produce bedaquiline, its price could go down by more than 50 per cent. The tablets’ present cost — $400 per six-month treatment course — is too steep for a large majority of Indian TB patients who have developed resistance to drugs over the years. This is evident from a 2019 survey which shows that while over 55,000 TB patients could have benefited from access to bedaquiline, only around 10,000 of them could access the drug. Freeing the drug from the patent would also make it more accessible to the patients as patented drugs can be procured only by government agencies, which distribute them further for use under state-run programmes.

The wider reach of WHO-recommended bedaquiline for TB treatment would also go a long way in helping India meet its goal of eradicating TB by 2025. However, given that India figures prominently on the WHO list of high-burden countries for TB, this aim is challenging, despite PM Modi’s claim on Friday that India is on course to win the battle against TB. On a positive note, the access to the safer, oral and efficacious bedaquiline would spell the end of the side effects of toxic injected drugs that patients have been enduring.