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MPP signs licence with AbbVie to expand access to key hepatitis C treatment, glecaprevir/pibrentasvir

November 14, 2018

The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) has announced a new, royalty-free licence agreement with AbbVie for glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (G/P) – a World Health Organization (WHO)-recommended treatment for people living with chronic hepatitis C (HCV).

The licence will enable quality-assured manufacturers to develop and sell generic medicines containing G/P in 99 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and territories at affordable prices, enabling access to and treatment scale-up with the most effective pan-genotypic regimens. The agreement was launched at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) The Liver Meeting 2018 in San Francisco.

“G/P is a priority therapy for licensing for the MPP, so this agreement with AbbVie is very good news for public health,” said Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, Chair of the MPP Governance Board. “It is a really important new option for a significant proportion of HCV patients throughout the world. As with previous MPP licences, we look forward to facilitating access to generic versions of this product as quickly as possible in as many territories as possible.”

Globally, 71 million people are currently living with chronic HCV, many of them in LMICs. By the end of 2015, only 20 percent had been diagnosed and a mere seven percent of them had received treatment. In February 2017, the MPP issued its annual report on priority medicines for in-licensing. Given its favourable clinical profile and high potential in LMICs, G/P was listed as a key priority treatment.

G/P is an all-oral, once-daily, pan-genotypic combination regimen and was originally approved in 2017. It has achieved high cure (SVR12) rates of 98 per cent in treatment-naïve non-cirrhotic patients across all six genotypes of the virus. It is recommended by the WHO as a first-line treatment for eight weeks in treatment- naïve non-cirrhotic patients. Treatment-naïve patients with compensated liver cirrhosis require a 12-week treatment course.

Further, the regimen is also indicated for use in HCV patients with any degree of renal impairment, including patients on dialysis. Globally between five and ten percent of all people living with chronic HCV infection are estimated to be living with kidney disease and this treatment will be very helpful for them.

There are 95 countries and four territories included in the MPP/AbbVie licence for G/P at this point.

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