Dates: 23 July 2018
Emerald Room, RAI Amsterdam Convention Center
More than 200 participants attended the MPP Satellite Symposium co-hosted with Unitaid during the 22nd International AIDS Conference entitled “Meet the manufacturers of HIV and HCV treatments: challenges and opportunities for treatment scale-up” on Tuesday 24 July 2018.
MPP Executive Director Charles Gore and GNP+ Program Manager Alexandra Volgina, who co-chaired the session, opened the satellite event acknowledging the important role that generic manufacturing partners play in meeting the needs of people living with HIV and hepatitis C in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
MPP Head of Policy Esteban Burrone then explained our model, the key features of MPP licences, and presented MedsPaL. MPP Head of Business Development a.i. Aastha Gupta provided an update on progress of sublicensees with regards to the development of new HIV and hepatitis C medicines, with a focus on dolutegravir and its combinations, paediatric ARTs and daclatasvir and its combination.
Attendees also heard from WHO’s Françoise Renaud on the organisation’s work relating to the transition to new treatments and formulations for Hepatitis C and HIV. Françoise mentioned the upcoming release of the WHO Hepatitis C treatment guidelines on the occasion of World Hepatitis Day on 28 July 2018. The guidelines recommend treating all people aged 12 and above and the use of pan-genotypic regimens. Françoise also discussed the WHO’s new recommendations for first line HIV treatment including recommendations around the use of dolutegravir as part of the preferred 1st line regimen. She also presented the current transition plans initiated by many countries and the latest WHO statement on a potential safety issue with dolutegravir.
Unitaid Technical Manager Carmen Pérez Casas detailed Unitaid’s work to prevent, treat and diagnose HIV, tuberculosis and malaria and mentioned the range of projects Unitaid is funding to facilitate the introduction of new adult and paediatric formulations in LMICs.
A lively panel discussion chaired by Alexandra Volgina followed with representatives from MPP generic manufacturing partners. These included Mylan’s Arvind Kanda, Emcure’s Balaji UD, Laurus Labs’ Chandrakanth Chereddi, Hetero Corporate’s Jos Perriëns, Macleods’ Shailesh Pednekar, and Aurobindo Pharma’s Umesh K. The audience then seized the opportunity to ask a range of questions to the manufacturers including on timelines for generic drug availability, pricing strategies, forecasting of demand, challenges with respect to transition to new products, regulatory hurdles and issues relating to pharmacovigilance.
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The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) is a United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to and facilitate the development of life-saving medicines for low- and middle-income countries. Through its innovative business model, MPP partners with civil society, governments, international organisations, industry, patient groups, and other stakeholders to prioritise and license needed medicines and pool intellectual property to encourage generic manufacture and the development of new formulations.
To date, MPP has signed agreements with 22 patent holders for 13 HIV antiretrovirals, one HIV technology platform, three hepatitis C direct-acting antivirals, a tuberculosis treatment, a cancer treatment, four long-acting technologies, a post-partum haemorrhage medicine, three oral antiviral treatments for COVID-19 and 16 COVID-19 technologies.
MPP was founded by Unitaid, which continues to be MPP’s main funder. MPP’s work on access to essential medicines is also funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Government of Canada, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Government of Flanders. MPP’s activities in COVID-19 are undertaken with the financial support of the Japanese Government, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the German Agency for International Cooperation, and SDC.