It is unacceptable that the US-based pharmaceutical corporation Gilead Sciences made more than $6 billion in HIV product sales in the third quarter of this year, yet continues to block millions of people’s access to the highly effective HIV prevention medicine lenacapavir, said Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today.
Gilead insists on charging high prices for this drug — more than $28,000 per person per year in the US — even though it can be made and sold for a profit for less than $40, and severely limits its availability in some of the countries that need it most.
Lenacapavir is an injectable version of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) that only needs to be given twice a year and is nearly 100 percent effective in preventing HIV, making it an ideal prevention method for many of the populations and in many of the places in which MSF operates. This includes people who face stigma, discrimination, and exclusion from health care, as well as those living in humanitarian emergencies, where daily pills or regular clinic visits can be a major challenge.
This quarter alone, Gilead reported $305 million in sales of lenacapavir for PrEP, almost all of which — 96 percent — were in the US. So far this year (January-September), Gilead has made $703 million in sales of lenacapavir, and is on track to reach a total of $1 billion for that medicine alone by the end of the year.
MSF recently launched a campaign calling on Gilead to expand global access to lenacapavir. While the company announced last month an “access pathway” for affordable generic lenacapavir in additional countries, it has not made public any concrete details like how much will be available for those countries or how much it will cost. Gilead remains the sole supplier of lenacapavir worldwide, continuing to sell it at very high prices, severely restricting supply to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and refusing to sell it directly to MSF for use in its medical programs.
Melissa Barber, MSF USA global health advocacy and policy advisor, said:
“As Gilead’s HIV sales keep climbing, so do infections in the countries where the company continues to block people from accessing affordable versions of lenacapavir.
“Gilead says it wants to end the HIV epidemic ‘for everyone, everywhere,’ but its actions say otherwise.
“Any clinic in New York can order lenacapavir today, but our team in Kenya has only been able to get five doses total, and Gilead refuses to sell to MSF at any price. Its shareholders should be asking why. Over 95 percent of new HIV infections take place outside the US, but over 95 percent of lenacapavir sales are in it. Again, Gilead’s shareholders should be asking why.
“Wall Street will cheer Gilead’s numbers today. But from southern Africa to Latin America, our teams on the ground will continue to see people every day who need effective HIV prevention options but can’t access them. What good is a medicine if the people who need it most can’t get it?
“There is no excuse for Gilead to not make lenacapavir more accessible for people living in high-burden HIV countries.
“Gilead must stop putting their profits before people’s health.”
