The Road to Treatment Access
TAGline • 2014Generic drug registration, licensing, and a trip to Gilead’s islands Karyn Kaplan and Tracy Swan Access to essential medicines is part of the human right to health. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has demonstrated that generic competition is key to massive antiretroviral treatment (ART) scale-up in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). But several steps are needed to…
New Hepatitis Resolution Is Passed at World Health Assembly; Challenges World Health Organization and Member States to Act
Statement / Press • 2014Today, four years after introducing its first viral hepatitis resolution, the World Health Assembly (WHA)—the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO)—passed the Hepatitis Resolution, which commits the WHO and United Nations (UN) member states to urgent action to address the global hepatitis pandemic, including that of hepatitis C virus (HCV).
Punked by Pharma: Public Funds for Private Products
TAGline • 2014Tax dollars are making it easier for the drug and diagnostics industry to develop and market essential TB products. Is the public getting a fair return on its investment? By Lindsay McKenna Motivating the pharmaceutical industry to step up and respond to the burgeoning tuberculosis (TB) epidemic is one thing. Publicly funding its research and…
Marketplace Menaces: Discriminatory Practices by the ACA’s Qualified Health Plans
TAGline • 2014Advocates scramble to stay ahead of coverage rejections, formulary concerns, and exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses facing people living with HIV By Kenyon Farrow #GetCovered That’s the White House’s official hashtag and marketing campaign to spike the number of Americans enrolling into qualified health plans (QHP) through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The deadline for individual enrollment…
Falling Funding for Tuberculosis Research Threatens to Derail TB Elimination Efforts in the United States
Statement / Press • 2014The goal of eliminating tuberculosis (TB) as a public health threat in the United States is under threat, a new policy brief released today by Treatment Action Group (TAG) shows. Analysis conducted by TAG reveals that spending on TB research and development (R&D) among U.S. government agencies declined from 2009 to 2012 in the face of budget instability, sequestration, and the rising costs of biomedical research.
Have a Heart, Save My liver!
Statement / Press • 2014February 14, 2013 – Today, on the occasion of Valentine’s Day, Médecins du Monde and Treatment Action Group (TAG) are launching an action urging pharmaceutical giants Merck and Roche to drop their exorbitant prices for pegylated interferon, an effective hepatitis C (HCV) treatment. At least 180 million people (3% of the world’s population) have been…
A Drug by Any Other Name
TAGline • 2014The basics of generic medications, bioequivalence, and the push for good manufacturing practices Tim Horn Securing access to generic drugs to treat HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), and tuberculosis (TB) is now one of the most prominent strategies of global health care and treatment activism. In the vast majority of low-income countries, the licensing of…
An Activist’s Guide to Linezolid (Zyvox)
Publication • 2014By Erica Lessem and Lauren Volpert September 2014 I. Introduction Increasingly drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB) are becoming more common worldwide, and few medicines are available to treat them.1 Newly developed TB drugs, such as bedaquiline and delamanid, offer some hope, but need to be taken along with other drugs. Linezolid, an antibiotic approved for…
1st Hepatitis C Virus World Community Advisory Board Report
Publication • 2014PILLS COST PENNIES, GREED COSTS LIVES July 14, 2014 By Odilon Couzin and Karyn Kaplan About the Hepatitis C Virus World Community Advisory Board Since the early years of the AIDS epidemic, people living with HIV/AIDS and their allies have organized their communities and met with drug companies, researchers, and government regulators to influence clinical…
Forgotten Negatives: The Limits of Treatment as Prevention
TAGline • 2014The CDC’s High-Impact Prevention strategy takes aim at the stubborn HIV incidence rate in the United States. The only problem: it doesn’t include an ambitious plan for those at risk for the virus By Jeremiah Johnson There is no shortage of depressing statistics when it comes to HIV prevention in the United States: 50,000 new…