Celebrities join campaigners to call for cheaper version of ‘revolutionary’ HIV drug for poorer countries | Global development

Former world leaders, celebrities and a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who helped discover HIV have written to a leading pharmaceutical company urging it to make a “revolutionary” HIV drug available to people living outside rich countries.

US company Gilead Sciences has been urged to “shape history” by avoiding a repeat of the “horror and shame” of the early years of the AIDS pandemic, when 12 million lives were lost in the world’s worst regions. poorest people in the world after effective medicines became available. , because the drugs were not affordable.

Gilead’s drug Lenacapavir can treat HIV when given as two injections per year. Ongoing trials are expected to show that it is also an effective prevention drug.

It is currently only available in a handful of wealthy countries and has a list price of $42,250 (£33,170) in the US for the first year of treatment and $39,000 for subsequent years. The company’s patent won’t expire for nearly two decades.

In a letter, campaigners said the drug “could be a real game-changer around the world for those most excluded from high-quality health care” and “help end AIDS as a health threat.” public by 2030 – but only if everyone who would benefit from it can access it. he”.

Three hundred signatories – including actors Gillian Anderson, Stephen Fry, Sharon Stone and Alan Cumming; former heads of state; Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who helped discover HIV; and people living with the virus – signed the letter. He urges the company to ensure access to people in low- and middle-income countries who are infected or at risk of HIV, at the same time as the drug becomes available in high-income countries.

This could be achieved by licensing generic versions through the Unitaid-backed Medicines Patent Pool, something the company has done in the past for HIV/Aids and hepatitis C treatments, but only for countries low rather than middle income.

“Countries in the South are home to most of the people who could benefit from lenacapavir. Currently, in Asia, Africa and Latin America, approximately 1 million people are infected with HIV each year; imagine if we could prevent all of these people from becoming infected, and thus change their lives, by freeing them from a life of treatment and medical care,” said the letter, organized by the People’s Medicines Alliance.

A twice-yearly injection could be particularly helpful for marginalized groups, including young women, LGBTQ+ people facing criminalization and discrimination, sex workers and people who inject drugs, they said.

“The world remembers today with horror and shame that it took 10 years and 12 million lives lost before generic versions of ARVs were available worldwide and large-scale HIV treatment has thus become possible for the populations of the South.

“By sharing technology across the Global South, you will help save lives, prevent HIV infections and end the world’s deadliest pandemic.” You can shape the story.

Festus Mogae, president of Botswana between 1998 and 2008 and signatory of the letter, said: “When I came to power, it would have been unthinkable to say that we could end the AIDS pandemic in our lifetime. This goal is now within reach, but it will take courageous leadership from companies like Gilead. They have the opportunity to turn a page on the pharmaceutical industry’s deadly neglect of Africans living with HIV.

Gilead has been contacted for comment.