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(English version is followed by the French)

TAG and our French partners OTMeds (Observatoire de la transparence dans les politiques du médicaments) sent a letter to Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson calling on the company to reverse its efforts to patent two obvious combinations of two critical drugs to prevent tuberculosis: rifapentine and isoniazid. When taken together, rifapentine and isoniazid form the WHO-recommended 3HP regimen used to prevent TB. The drugs are decades old and were developed primarily with public resources. To keep rifapentine and isoniazid in the public domain, TAG and OTMeds called on Sanofi to withdraw its patent applications from all jurisdictions and to surrender these patents in countries where they have already been granted.

AUGUST 4, 2020

Sanofi has responded to TAG and OTMeds. The response indicates that Sanofi has initiated a process of abandoning all of the patent applications on combinations of rifapentine and isoniazid in all countries where they were filed. Furthermore, “Sanofi commits not to reinstate any of the patents/applications, and not to initiate any action against any party who would like to manufacture the specific formulations of the combinations once covered by Sanofi’s two patent families, before the abandonments become effective under the relevant national patent regulations.”