(Paris) Several personalities – scientists, political leaders, celebrities – called on Thursday the pharmaceutical group Gilead to make available a treatment deemed promising in the fight against HIV infections.
This treatment, developed from the lenacapavir molecule, could be a “game changer” in the fight against HIV, which causes AIDS, according to this open letter signed by former heads of state, such as ex-Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, actors like actress Sharon Stone, and researchers such as Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, co-discoverer of this virus in the 1980s.
Approved since 2022 by American and European health authorities, this treatment is considered particularly promising, because it only requires two injections per year in people infected with the virus.
This makes it a major hope for people “who do not have access to a good level of care”, according to this letter, addressed to Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day.
By these terms, the signatories designate in particular the inhabitants of poor or developing countries, in particular in Africa where two thirds of people infected with HIV in the world live.
With Gilead’s treatment, AIDS could therefore “cease to be a public health threat by 2030”, they estimate. But “for the moment, Gilead has not ensured that this can be the case”, regret the signatories.
They judge that at the prices charged by Gilead, lenacapavir, marketed under the name Sunlenca, will not be accessible to patients in poor countries.
They therefore ask the laboratory to open the rights to the treatment with the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), an organization linked to the United Nations, through which generic versions of a drug can be developed.