ViiV Healthcare, a global specialist HIV company established by GSK and Pfizer dedicated to delivering advances in treatment and care for people living with HIV, has collaborated with the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), the UN-backed public health mechanism created in July 2010 with the goal of increasing access to HIV medicines.

Through this collaboration, ViiV Healthcare will grant MPP a voluntary licence for paediatric formulations of the antiretroviral medicine abacavir in the 118 countries where most (98.7%) children living with HIV live. Abacavir is currently recommended as a preferred nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) for first-line therapy in infants and children in the WHO guidelines.

ViiV Healthcare already has thirteen voluntary licence agreements with generics companies, all of which facilitate the manufacture and sale of low-cost versions of ViiV Healthcare medicines in those countries most affected by HIV and least able to pay for treatment and care. In 2011, ViiV Healthcare and its licensees supplied an estimated 717 million antiretroviral tablets. This is the equivalent of approximately 12 months’ supply for over a million people living with HIV.

Around 3.4 million children are living with HIV worldwide but 72% of those needing treatment do not have access to appropriate care and medicines. Among several barriers preventing further scale-up of the numbers of children on treatment is the lack of low-cost medicines that are palatable and acceptable for use by children.  

In July 2010, ViiV Healthcare announced that it would make its pipeline available through royalty-free voluntary licensing and not-for-profit initiatives in all least developed countries, all low income countries and all of sub-Saharan Africa. In keeping with this commitment, pipeline products for paediatric HIV treatment would be eligible to be licensed to MPP for the same 118 countries as the abacavir voluntary licence agreement announced today, once approved by regulatory agencies.

Dr Dominique Limet, CEO, ViiV Healthcare commented: “At ViiV Healthcare we have committed to playing our part to address the gaps in care and treatment of paediatric HIV. This agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool builds on the existing 13 licences granted to our generics partners and the broad range of initiatives supported through our Paediatric Innovation Seed Fund which aim to improve paediatric HIV research, care and treatment in resource-limited settings.  The overarching goal of our efforts is to improve the lives of children living with HIV, and to help make ViiV Healthcare’s medicines available to them.”

This agreement with MPP follows ViiV Healthcare’s collaboration with CHAI and Mylan Laboratories Limited to develop a taste-masked dispersible abacavir/lamivudine formulation for paediatric use in resource-limited settings, announced as part of the company’s Paediatric Innovation Seed Fund programme in July 2012.