More than 300 politicians, health experts and celebrities on Thursday called for US pharmaceutical giant Gilead to allow cheap, generic versions of a promising new HIV drug to be produced so it can reach people in developing countries most affected by the deadly disease.
The drug Lenacapavir could be a “real game-changer” in the fight against HIV, according to an open letter to Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day signed by a range of former world leaders, AIDS groups, activists, actors and others.
Lenacapavir, which was approved for use in the United States and the European Union in 2022 , only needs to be injected twice a year, making it particularly suited for people normally “excluded from high quality healthcare,” the open letter said.
“We urge Gilead to ensure that people in the Global South living with or at risk of HIV can access this groundbreaking medicine at the same time as people in the Global North can,” it added.
The signatories urged Gilead to license the drug on the United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool, which would allow for cheaper generic versions to be manufactured.
Two thirds of the 39 million people living with HIV were in Africa in 2022, according to the World Health Organization.
Africa also accounted for 380,000 of the 630,000 AIDS-related deaths across the world that year, the WHO figures showed.