Can patents affect access to TB preventive treatment? - a community guidebook, produced by the ARK Foundation of Nagaland, India
The ARK Foundation of Nagaland, India has produced a community guidebook intended to help grassroots activists understand how pharmaceutical corporations’ patenting practices impede access to crucial medicines such as rifapentine and isoniazid used in preventive treatment for TB.
The guide describes how communities can fight to bust patent protections that keep drugs out of reach, telling the story of how activists in India, Thailand, France and the United States successfully organized to block patent applications on two formulations of rifapentine-isoniazid and ultimately forced Sanofi to pledge to drop pending patents on similar treatment combinations around the world.
The No Patents on Prevention! guidebook was published by the ARK Foundation with support from Treatment Action Group and the Unitaid-funded IMPAACT4TB project.
Source: Treatment Action Group