Step To HIV Patent Pool

posted: 11/02/2011

The determined people campaigning for a patent pool to make HIV drugs available cheaply in developing countries are slowly getting results.
 

Unitaid works to improve access to medicines in developing countries and has set up the Geneva-based Medicines Patent Pool .

Sharing the patents of HIV drugs provides people in the developing world with cheap copies (‘generic’ versions of the drugs, rather than expensive brand name originals). Generic drug manufacturers in countries like India and China can then make legal cheap combinations of some of today's advanced HIV medicines.
 

2nd line generic treatments needed now

The world needs cheap combinations of new generic drugs to keep healthy and well the millions of people already talking treatments in the developing world, as HIV inevitably develops resistance to the basic drugs already being used.
 

Even GSK are now negotiating
But today, two months after sending out letters inviting the major makers of HIV drugs to add their patents on HIV drugs to the patent pool, it was announced that F. Hoffman-La Roche, Gilead Sciences, Sequoia Pharmaceuticals, and ViiV Healthcare (a joint venture of GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer) are about to start talking business.
 

The big surprise is Viiv Healthcare. GSK has always said it wasn't uninterested in pooling HIV patents. Its chief executive Andrew Witty, said they would do something else instead.
 

Viiv Healthcare has however now taken the first step by saying it is interested in joining the negotiations.

The Medicines Patent Pool has published the responses to the HIV drug patent pool invitation from all the companies, naming and shaming the less than enthusiastic companies with their own letters. They’ll update this every quarter. It will be worth watching to keep drug companies accountable to people with HIV.
 

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Gay and Living in Blackpool?

posted: 10/02/2011

Blackpool NHS is asking gay men and LBT residents to join their survey about your NHS. Gay and bi men in Blackpool, with or without HIV, can help make a difference.

The NHS, like all public bodies must create Equality Action Plans by April and HIV should be part of these, particularly in a town like Blackpool – both HIV prevention and HIV treatment and care.
 

Equality Action Plans must take these five steps

• Survey how service affects the protected groups (people with HIV are treated as ‘disabled,’ and LGBT are another protected group)
• Consult widely, involve people – that’s why they want your views now in this survey
• Assess the impact of their current policies and practice
• Use this evidence to decide action objectives and priorities
• Take the actions

The Blackpool NHS survey is to find out if different groups of people are treated unfairly and is secure and anonymous. Please take part before Monday 28 February. The survey takes about 5 minutes here on SurveyMonkey.

More information on the Blackpool NHS consultation please email Lorraine Moffat
 

Body Positive Blackpool Saved

posted: 05/10/2010

Body Positive in Blackpool has been saved by two local councillors who donated £6,500. Body Positive in Blackpool feared it would only survive until next year after it discovered its employee Bianca Campbell had stolen £4,127 using its bank card to buy things for her own botox company, Fresh Face.
Redundancies and cuts

As a result of Campbell's theft and a £15,000 cut in local authority funding, Body Positive Blackpool made two staff redundant and cut its services.  But last week the charity was giving a reprieve after Labour councillors Simon Blackburn and Gary Coleman donated £6,500 to keep the charity running.
Bianca Campbell, who was sacked in March when her theft was discovered, pleaded guilty to fraud at Preston Crown Court.
 

The court heard Campbell used a Body Positive Blackpool bankcard to order products for her own business. Campbell was given a total of six months prison, suspended for a year, with 12 months supervision.
 

Body Positive Blackpool 
 

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HIV Tests at Casualty

posted: 27/07/2010

Every person who goes to London A&E departments could soon be tested for HIV under plans being considered by NHS London. In the first move of its kind, the HIV checks could become routine at emergency units and will be offered to any adult attending casualty. The move is being rolled out at Chelsea & Westminster NHS foundation trust following a hugely successful Department of Health funded study at the south-west London hospital.
 

2 people diagnosed every month at one A&E

It comes because of the numbers of people with HIV and the rise in HIV across London. The pilot HIV testing at Chelsea and Westminster’s A&E department found nearly half a dozen new people with HIV in only three months.
 

The Health Protection Agency recently recommended that the NHS should as a matter of routine do a HIV healthcare check everyone when they go to an A&E department in any areas with higher rates of HIV. Now a number of other health trusts are already seriously considering this.
 

North West Too?

In NW England, Manchester, Salford and Blackpool have rates of HIV high enough to justify routine HIV screening in A&E.
 

Better Health and prevention

HIV testing at A&E is one way to improve the health of people with undiagnosed HIV. New figures show that at least one in every four people with HIV do not know they have HIV. Late diagnosis worsens people’s health and shortens people’s lives. Undiagnosed HIV means people don't get the treatment they need for good health and people may be passing on HIV unwittingly to their sexual partners.
 

Under 18s

Dr Rachael Jones, from Chelsea and Westminster hospital, said she has treated nearly a dozen patients under 18 in the last three years in West London but this was just “the tip of the iceberg”.
The consultant blamed ministers for focusing on underage pregnancy instead of on safer sex and said HIV tests should be routine for everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation. She said: “For a long time it was men having sex with men presenting with the virus. Now we're seeing teenagers coming through for the first time with HIV. It only takes one episode of unprotected sex for them to become infected.”
Dr Jones said that the “Don't die of ignorance” shock campaign of the Eighties failed to have a lasting impact and that many teenagers do not even know what HIV is.
 

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HIV Patent Pool Launched

posted: 09/06/2010

The long-awaited patent pool for HIV treatment drugs is now officially approved, and the international drug companies will now be pressed to give up their monopoly rights in July. Last night in Geneva, the final hurdle was crossed and the first-ever patent pool for HIV drugs got the official go-ahead.
 

After months of negotiations and expectations, the board of UNITAID – the international organisation set up by European donor countries to increase the supply of affordable medicines to the developing world - voted to set up the Medicines Patent Pool Foundation and give it $4.4 million in its first year.
 

The newly launched Medicines Patent Pool Foundation is expected to hit the ground running in July, persuading drug companies to hand over the patents they hold on HIV drugs so that cheap generic copies for people in poor countries can be made. The greatest benefits are expected to be in the manufacture of drugs in suitable formulations for children and in combining drugs belonging to a number of different manufacturers.
 

"What this means in practical terms," said Philippe Douste-Blazy, chair of the UNITAID Executive Board, "is that formal negotiations with the patent holders can now begin. We expect the Patent Pool Foundation to have its first licenses within a year."
 

This could be hard work. Not every major drug company is going to want to hand over its monopoly rights in a good cause, particularly when it comes to HIV drugs, for which there is a lucrative market in rich countries.
This is not the first HIV patent pool. British company GlaxoSmithKline recently set up its own, but while it has very creditably put in patents for drugs that could help against neglected diseases, it has excluded its own HIV drugs – and it holds some key HIV treatment patents. But chief executive Andrew Witty has said he will consider a UNITAID patent pool, so we wait to see what GSK will now do.

Meanwhile UNITAID is less than happy with another drug giant, Bristol Myers Squibb (see report yesterday), which is closing the only factory making a cheap generic version of ddl (didanosine) for babies. Up to 7000 babies in the developing world depend on this fall-back treatment option. The new factory is not due to open until next year.

Less than satisfactory answer

The Guardian’s Health Correspondent has managed to get an answer out of the drug company. This was their reply:
“Bristol-Myers Squibb takes the concerns of UNITAID about supply of [ddl] didanosine very seriously and is committed to working with all stakeholders to ensure peadiatric patients remain on treatment.
We informed UNITAID and other procurement agencies that manufacturing of [ddl] didanosine 25mg and 50mg at our plant in France will cease in June of this year. E.U. regulatory approval of the new U.S. manufacturing site is expected in February 2011.

To avoid disruption, we preventively built up inventory to twice the level of 2009 demand. We also took steps to ensure product availability immediately upon regulatory approval of the new manufacturing site. The European regulatory authorities are aware of the urgency of the situation.

A very significant and unforeseeable increase in demand of [ddl] didanosine 25mg and 50mg has however created a supply strain on Bristol-Myers Squibb products only. Supply of [ddl] didanosine 25 mg and 50 mg tablets remains available through multiple generic alternatives.
We are actively working with procurement agencies to provide [ddl] didanosine to patients in need and to ensure minimal disruption.”
 

UNITAID – the problem remains
UNITAID is not impressed "The problem persists," said a spokeswoman. The generic alternatives are not WHO-approved and therefore UNITAID will not buy them because there are not the essential permissions allowing their use. "We would like them to ensure they take all the necessary steps to ensure there isn't an interruption."
 

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