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Add to Preferred SourcesA landmark agreement announced by Unitaid, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and global biopharmaceutical company Sanofi will significantly lower the price of rifapentine, a critically important drug used to prevent tuberculosis (TB).
The deal will bolster efforts to treat latent TB infection – currently estimated to affect 1.7 billion people worldwide – by broadening access to better preventive therapy.
The volume-based agreement will discount the price of a three-month treatment course of rifapentine by nearly 70%, from approximately US$45 to US$15 in the public sectors of 100 low- and middle-income countries burdened by TB and TB/HIV coinfection.
“Effective TB prevention will be a game-changer in the global fight to eliminate one of the major killer diseases,” said Unitaid’s Executive Director Lelio Marmora. “This lifesaving drug has, until now, been completely unaffordable in developing countries. This agreement will help transform political commitment to tangible action.”
Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund, warmly welcomed the new agreement. “Innovative partnerships can save lives,” said Sands. “At the discounted price, many people at risk of getting TB will have access to more effective treatment and can stay healthy, and that helps build more stable and prosperous communities.”
A quarter of the world’s population is infected with latent TB – they have no symptoms, are not contagious and most do not know they are infected. Without treatment, 5% to 10% of these people – 85 million to 170 million people globally – will develop active TB, the form which makes people sick and can be transmitted from person to person. HIV infection makes people up to 37 times more likely to fall ill with the active disease. Close to 1.5 million people die of TB every year.
The substantially lower cost of rifapentine will now allow the main development partners supporting TB prevention, such as the Global Fund, PEPFAR, USAID and the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility, to make it much more widely available through their programs with governments in low- and middle-income countries.
Original source: Unitaid
Published on 30 October 2019