Advocates have been fighting Johnson & Johnson for years over a patent on a lifesaving tuberculosis pill. On Thursday, they won a partial victory as the United Nations-affiliated group STOP TB announced an agreement to make cheaper generics available across dozens of low- and middle-income countries with high rates of disease.
The deal had been in the works for months and was signed in June, according to STOP TB global drug facility chief Brenda Waning. But its announcement appeared to be sped up by a pressure campaign this week from an unusual source: novelist and YouTube star John Green, who, in consultation with activists, posted a video Tuesday accusing J&J of keeping the drug out of the hands of millions of people.
The pill, called bedaquiline, was first approved in 2012 as the first new TB drug in over 40 years and revolutionized treatment for drug-resistant infections. But its relatively high cost limited access in many low- and middle-income countries hit hardest by an epidemic that still kills around 1.5 million people every year, most of them among the world’s poorest. The company initially charged $900 per course in low-income countries, according to a 2016 report, but gradually lowered it to $340 three years ago.
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