•  united nations
• Thursday, July 14, 2011
• Inter Press Service

The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has welcomed a new license agreement between the Medicines Patent Pool and Gilead Sciences while UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation ( WHO) have introduced a once-daily pill that reduces the risk of spreading HIV.

The Medicines Patent Pool forms agreements with patent holders, and allows the production of generic medicines based on the patent holders' original intellectual property.

The license agreement between Medicines Patent Pool and Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company, will allow increased access to antiretroviral therapy which is most needed in developing countries.

'I hope today's announcement will inspire other pharmaceutical companies to follow suit to share intellectual property and innovation to make new technological advances in HIV treatment available sooner to the people that need them the most' said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS.

While an estimated 6.6 million people already receive access to such therapy in low- and middle-income countries, UNAIDS estimates another 9 million are still in need.

UNAIDS hopes that this agreement will be a turning point for future private sector collaboration in sharing innovation, and will advance the response to HIV.

Because of this agreement, tenofovir, emtricitabine, cobicistat and Quad, a combination of the drugs, may be produced more easily and cost-effectively.

Recent studies have also shown that a once-daily pill of tenofovir/emtricitabine taken as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) may reduce the spread of HIV up to 73% among heterosexuals. Tenofovir alone may reduce the contraction of HIV by 62%.

'Effective new HIV prevention tools are urgently needed, and these studies could have enormous impact in preventing heterosexual transmission,' said Dr Margaret Chan, World Health Organization (WHO)'s Director-General.

'These studies could help us to reach the tipping point in the HIV epidemic' Sidibé added. As it is estimated that only half of the 33 million people affected by HIV know their HIV status, the news of PrEP in HIV prevention will urge more people to get tested.

Beyond testing, more people will have access to options, and should discuss prevention options with their partners, who may already be HIV positive.

This combination of new licensing agreements and developing drugs is expected to increase the number of people with access to treatment and decrease the number of new cases of HIV each year.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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