Agency Gilead could bring the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome pandemic towards an end if the United States pharmaceutical giant opens up access to its game-changing new Human Immunodeficiency Virus drug, the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, Winnie Byanyima told AFP. Byanyima urged Gilead to “make history” by allowing generic manufacturing of Lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injectable antiretroviral medication used to treat HIV patients. She urged Gilead to open up Lenacapavir to the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool international organisation, whereby cheaper generic versions could be sold under licence in low- and middle-income nations.
Whatever the financial rewards of creating Lenacapavir, the renown of being the company that conquered the AIDS pandemic would be greater, Byanyima said. “Gilead has an opportunity to take us closer to ending AIDS as a public health threat. Gilead has an opportunity to save the world.
To save the world, literally,” from the pandemic, Byanyima told AFP in an interview at UNAIDS’ headquarters in Geneva. “They can be the company that wins a Nobel Prize, for example. The reward doesn’t come just through money.
There is also recognition...
imagine how great it would be,” the UNAIDS boss added. While around 10 million people with HIV still need to be reached with antiretroviral therapy, around 30 million are on such treatment. Byanyima said this was only possible thanks to innovations from pharmace.