Indian activists calling for compulsory licensing of TB drugs

Survivors of drug resistant tuberculosis TB), health organizations and the TB community in India are urging the government to institute a compulsory licence on two new-generation drugs: bedaquiline and delamanid.

This is despite the fact that multinationals Johnson & Johnson NYSE: JNJ) and Mylan (Nasdaq: MYL) are concurrently also discussing measures to make their tuberculosis drugs available across the country at lower prices, reports The Pharma Letter’s India correspondent.

More than one in four TB patients in India are resistant to at least one anti-TB drug, and one in 16 is ailing from difficult-to-treat multi drug resistant TB (MDRTB). Alarmingly, the estimated number of MDRTB, those resistant to rifampicin in India is 147,000, accounting for one fourth of the global burden of MDRTB resistant to rifampicin, a recent survey by the Health Ministry showed.