The Medicines Patent
Pool signs licence with
AbbVie to expand
access to key hepatitis
C treatment
The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP)
has announced a new, royalty-free
licence agreement with AbbVie for
glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (G/P) – a
World Health Organization (WHO)
recommended treatment for
people living with chronic hepatitis
C (HCV). The licence will enable
quality-assured manufacturers to
develop and sell generic medicines
containing G/P in 95 low- and
middle-income countries (LMICs)
and territories at affordable prices,
enabling access to and treatment
scale-up with the most effective
pan-genotypic regimens. The
agreement was launched at the
American Association for the Study
of Liver Diseases (AASLD) The Liver
Meeting 2018 in San Francisco.
“G/P is a priority therapy for
licensing for the MPP, so this
agreement with AbbVie is very
good news for public health,” said
Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, Chair of the
MPP Governance Board. “It is a
really important new option for
a significant proportion of HCV
patients throughout the world. As
with previous MPP licences, we
look forward to facilitating access
to generic versions of this product
as quickly as possible in as many
territories as possible.”
Globally, 71 million people are
currently living with chronic HCV,
many of them in LMICs. By the
end of 2015, only 20 percent had
been diagnosed and a mere seven
percent of them had received
treatment. In February 2017, the
MPP issued its annual report on
priority medicines for in-licensing.
Given its favourable clinical profile
and high potential in LMICs,
G/P was listed as a key priority
treatment.
G/P is an all-oral, once-daily, pan-
genotypic combination regimen
and was originally approved in
2017. It has achieved high cure
(SVR12) rates of 98 per cent in
treatment-naïve non-cirrhotic
patients across all six genotypes
of the virus. It is recommended by
the WHO as a first-line treatment
for eight weeks in treatment- naïve
non-cirrhotic patients. Treatment-
naïve patients with compensated
liver cirrhosis require a 12-week
treatment course.
Further, the regimen is also
indicated for use in HCV patients
with any degree of renal
impairment, including patients
on dialysis. Globally between five
and ten percent of all people living
with chronic HCV infection are
estimated to be living with kidney
disease and this treatment will be
very helpful for them.
There are 95 countries and
four territories included in the
MPP/AbbVie licence for G/P at
this point. The countires are
Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua
and Barbuda, Bangladesh,
Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia,
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi,
Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape
Verde, Central African Republic,
Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cook
Island, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Djibouti,
Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial
Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji,
Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana,
Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti,
Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Kiribati,
Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya,
Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives,
Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania,
Mauritius, Micronesia, Morocco,
Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia,
Nauru, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria,
Niue, Pakistan, Palau, Papua
New Guinea, Philippines, Rep.,
Reunion Islands, Rwanda, Saba,
Saint Eustatius, Saint Kitts and
Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent
& the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao
Tome and Principe, Senegal,
Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon
Islands, Somalia, South Africa,
South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Suriname,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Timor-Leste,
Togo, Tunisia, Turkmenistan,
Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Vietnam,
West Bank & Gaza, Yemen, Zambia,
Zimbabwe.
World Hepatitis
Alliance 2019 Elections nominate candidates from their
countries for the board elections to
be held in January 2019.
2019 is an election year for the
World Hepatitis Alliance Board. All members are also able to
nominate candidates for the
position of President-Elect who
will be selected by the newly
elected Board from the candidates’
members put forward.
The President-Elect selection
will take place at the WHA board
meeting in March 2019. The
selected candidate will be learning
the role of WHA President for a year
before being endorsed as President
The time has come for members
to have a say about who is
representing them at both a
regional and global level.
Nominations are now open for
new Board members for the EURO,
SEARO and PAHO regions. Members
from those regions are able to
by the Board at the end of their
term as President-Elect.
WHA members have been sent
details of the nomination process.
If you are a member and have not
received the relevant documents to
make your nomination then please
email us on
[email protected]
The deadline for nominations is
Friday 30th November.
WHA at the World Health Summit
In October, WHA CEO, Raquel Peck attended the World Health
Summit in Berlin, an annual event bringing together global leaders
including heads of state, development agencies, researchers,
physicians as well as representatives from industry and NGO. At
the event the World Health Organization released the Global
Action Plan for healthy lives and well-being for all. A report to
leverage the experience and expertise of the global health
community to accelerate progress towards SDG3
“Claiming over one million lives each year, viral hepatitis is one
of the world’s major public health challenges and
disproportionately affects people living in LMICs. Therefore
access to safe, quality-assured treatments, affordable for all,
has to be the fundamental aim of the public health
community. This is a big step in that direction. The next step is
to see more territories included in the agreement. Each step
makes the dream of hepatitis C elimination more real.”
Raquel Peck, CEO, World Hepatitis Alliance
6 hep Voice November 2018
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