The Colombian government on Wednesday issued a compulsory license for a commonly used drug to treat HIV, the first time the government there has stepped in to manufacture a drug without the drugmaker’s permission.
The compulsory license was issued for dolutegravir, which is manufactured by ViiV Healthcare, an HIV-focused drug company operated by GSK. The license gives Colombia’s ministry of health the authority to manufacture the drug under a system established by a World Trade Organization agreement.
The move could drastically lower the cost of the drug for patients in Colombia. A year’s supply of the medication cost $1,244 in Colombia in 2023. By contrast, the international health financing organization the Global Fund purchases doses for just $22.80 per year, and the Pan-American Health Organization acquires it for $44 per year, according to the advocacy group Public Citizen.
“Colombia is planting a flag for global health equity,” said Peter Maybarduk, who heads Public Citizen’s access to medicines program, in a release. “This will inspire new regional challenges to patent barriers and improve treatment access, towards an AIDS-free generation.”
Advocates have cited that 190,000 people in Colombia have HIV and the Colombian healthcare system has been further stretched thin by the Venezuelan migrant crisis on the two countries’ border.
“This will facilitate the use of dolutegravir in our first-line treatment of HIV for the survivors of sexual violence whom we serve in our medical operations in Colombia, and it will allow more and more people living with HIV in Colombia to access the most effective medicine,” Carmenza Gálvez, medical coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Colombia and Panama, said in a release.
GSK argued that issuing compulsory licenses isn’t the best way to increase access to treatments and said it was disappointed by the decision.
The use of compulsory licenses “discourages the innovation needed to drive advances in HIV treatment and care and seeks to push the costs of developing new medicines onto other countries,” a company spokesperson said. They added that GSK is open to continue engaging with the Colombian government and will continue supplying dolutegravir in the country.
In a statement to Endpoints News, PhRMA spokesperson Megan Van Etten highlighted work that industry has done to address HIV/AIDS and said intellectual property rights are the “foundation” for innovation.