Civil society action means 27,000 more people could receive HIV treatment for 10 years.
The price of 2 key HIV drugs in Argentina has led to $50 million in annual savings, enough to provide treatment to 27,000 people for 10 years.
Our partner, Fundación Grupo Efecto Positivo (FGEP) led pre-grant patent oppositions on two drugs: TDF/FTC/EFV (Atripla®) and TDF+FTC (Truvada®). This action, combined with sustained meetings with policy makers and suppliers, resulted in the procurement of generic versions of these drugs from the manufacturer Cipla and a local generic producer. In turn, this meant price reductions of 68% on TDF/FTC and 95% on TDF/ FTC/EFV. These price reductions are now generating combined annual savings of US$50.8 million in Argentina.
The actions that contributed to this success included filing patent oppositions, briefing media and influencing government.
The infographic forms part of the International Treatment Preparedness Coaltion’s (ITPC) 2016 Annual Review. ITPC leads the Make Medicines Affordable campaign consortium.
Savings across the campaign
Across the campaign, in our four focus countries, there are projected savings of $696m for health budgets.
Since the start of project, we led seven patent oppositions in the four countries. We also pursued two patent oppositions that were led prior to start of the project. As a result of an opposition we led in Brazil, the patent application on the antiretroviral drug TDF/FTC was rejected in early 2017. This will mean that other companies can manufacture and sell the drug in Brazil, thus increasing competition and bringing down prices. The outcomes of the other patent oppositions are still pending.
When comparing the latest antiretroviral prices with prices before our interventions, and considering the number of people currently on treatment, we have secured annual savings of US$695 million across the four focus countries.
These significant savings are linked to our work challenging unmerited patents, whilst engaging with health authorities, patent offices and procurement agencies.
Read the ITPC 2016 Annual Review in full.
