The international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has asked the multinational drug major Johnson & Johnson to review its recent license agreement with three generic manufacturers on antiretroviral medicine rilpivirine on the pleas that it will keep a promising new AIDS medicine out of the hands of many patients across the developing world.

A Johnson & Johnson company, Tibotec had recently licensed production of rilpivirine to one South African and two Indian manufacturers, but has limited the geographic scope of the licenses such that all of Latin America, Central Asia and most Caribbean and South East Asian countries will not be able to receive generic versions of the medicine. “Given the restrictive licensing, these countries may not be able to import generic versions from India even if they override patents in their countries through compulsory licenses”, MSF said.

“While it's encouraging to see Tibotec is thinking about access to this drug for patients in sub-Saharan Africa, it’s very unfortunate that the company has chosen to be restrictive and discriminatory by issuing licenses that look more like a franchise than actual generic competition,” said Dr Tido von Schoen-Angerer, executive director of MSF’s Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines.

The MSF has written to the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson and other companies that produce AIDS medicines, asking them to put their patents in to the newly-established Medicines Patent Pool. The Patent Pool mechanism would allow any number of generic manufacturers to produce more affordable versions and fixed-dose combinations that combine two or more medicines into one pill. Unlike this limited Tiobtec license, the licenses the Patent Pool received from the US National Institutes of Health related to Tibotec's HIV medicine darunavir included all developing countries, in line with the Patent Pool’s aim.

“It is easy to make voluntary licenses work for commercial interests – the challenge is making them work for both commercial and public health needs so we can tackle the AIDS epidemic,” said von Schoen-Angerer.  “We urge Johnson & Johnson to establish better license conditions and include its patents in the Patent Pool.”

In Brazil, Tibotec charges more than $6,000 per patient per year for another AIDS medicine, darunavir, and a license it has agreed for Africa has led to a price tag of more than $1,000 per patient per year for the same drug, nearly eight times more than the recommended standard triple combination. rilpivirine is also likely to be priced high in developing countries not covered by the new licenses, MSF said.

MSF relies upon affordable generic medicines to provide AIDS treatment to 160,000 people across the developing world.  Affordable generic medicines have played a major role in scaling up AIDS treatment to more than five million people in developing countries, but a further ten million people in urgent need of AIDS medicines are still waiting, international medical humanitarian organization said.