Johnson and Johnson betrays AIDS patients this Christmas
20. December 2011
The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) has expressed deep disappointment that Johnson and Johnson (J&J) will not license its HIV drugs to the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). By not doing so, the pharmaceutical company has “selfishly put profit over people’s lives” states Peter Prove, EAA Executive Director.
J&J holds the patents for several key drugs needed by millions of people living with HIV. These include components of the fixed dose combinations recommended by the World Health Organization as well as some of the newest and most effective HIV drugs. As David Deakin, Chair of the EAA’s Access to Treatment Working Group and HIV Programmes Manager, Tearfund, UK, says; “By not joining the MPP, J&J is blocking collaborative efforts to get life-saving medicines to the 7.6 million people today who do need them but do not have them, let alone the 55 million people estimated to need them by 2030.”
Ad hoc voluntary licensing - J&J’s preferred alternative to the MPP - will not expand access to treatment or reduce prices to HIV drugs in the sustainable and holistic manner that the MPP would. “Piecemeal voluntary licensing will only help some people some of the time. A cynic might say that companies can use it to get good PR without addressing the root of the problem,” says Prove. “The reality, however, is that patent barriers are still stopping affordable drugs from getting to the people who need them most.”
The EAA’s “Live the Promise” campaign on HIV and AIDS maintains that the MPP currently offers the best chance there is to speed up access to treatment, including for tens of thousands of children living with HIV. “The announcement from J&J is a bitter blow for all families affected by HIV this Christmas,” says David Deakin. “We urge J&J to reconsider their decision and will be mobilizing our supporters to demand the same.”
For more information contact: Sara Speicher, sspeicher@who-needs-spam.e-alliance.ch, +44 7821 860 723.
The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance is a broad international network of churches and Christian organizations cooperating in advocacy on food and HIV and AIDS. The Alliance is based in Geneva, Switzerland. For more information, see http://www.e-alliance.ch/
