Topline
Washington, D.C.-based drugmaker Danaher has agreed to lower the cost of test cartridges used to diagnose tuberculosis by 20% and sell them at cost, the company announced Tuesday, a move that comes after a public pressure campaign from a group of health nonprofits, and one experts say will greatly expand access to the tests in developing countries where it is needed most.
A GeneXpert machine is pictured inside a mobile testing unit June 9, 2020, in Fort Worth, Texas.
Key Facts
Danaher and its subsidiary Cepheid, which develops the tests, have committed to reducing the price of its Xpert test cartridges from $9.98 to $7.97, which it says is what it costs the company to make, and will not earn any profit—and it says it will allow a third-party organization to validate their costs to confirm this on an annual basis.
The cartridges are used in the GeneXpert machine to diagnose tuberculosis in under an hour and are essential to detecting and treating the disease.
Without the GeneXpert tests, doctors are forced to test for the disease by examining a sputum sample collected from the patient’s airway under a microscope, but that method is imperfect. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria—one of the organizations that facilitated the agreement with Danaher—said this reduced price will allow those who need them to purchase 5 million more tests worldwide, with Peter Sands, the Global Fund’s executive director, saying it “should enable significantly expanded access to the communities most in need.”
The company’s higher-end test cartridge, which can detect extensively drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis, will not see its price reduced.
Key Background
Tuberculosis kills around 1.5 million people annually, according to the World Health Organization, making it the world’s deadliest infectious disease and the thirteenth-leading cause of death globally, even though the disease is completely curable. However, because of the high cost of both treatment and testing, the cure is out of reach for many in developing countries like Lesotho, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Peru. Danaher and Cepheid’s GeneXpert machine was released in 2005 and developed using more than $252 million of public funding, mostly from the U.S.
Tangent
Danaher’s announcement comes after a pressure campaign from a cohort of international health and aid organizations that includes the Global Fund, Stop TB Partnership and USAID. The organizations had originally lobbied the company to lower the price 50% to around $5, but said Tuesday that they welcomed Danaher’s ultimate cost reduction. The campaign also included efforts from John Green, the popular novelist behind The Fault In Our Stars, educational YouTube creator and a board member at Partners In Health, who created YouTube videos about the situation and repeatedly urged his viewers on social media to contact Danaher and Cepheid, asking them to reduce their price. Partners In Health, the nonprofit he works with, similarly launched a publicity campaign. Green and many of the same organizations were also involved in a similar effort to pressure drugmaker Johnson & Johnson to allow its patent to expire on bedaquiline, the medicine used to treat tuberculosis, which was similarly out of reach for many in developing countries due to its price. Johnson & Johnson ultimately agreed to allow Stop TB Partnership to distribute a generic version of the drug in many developing countries with lots of tuberculosis, which is expected to greatly expand its access in those countries.
Contra
While many were happy with the news of this announcement, some still had questions, including Carole Mitnick, a tuberculosis specialist with Partners in Health and a professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, who in a statement sent to Forbes said she wants to know if and when the company will commit to lower its costs on the higher-end test cartridges. Mitnick said, “We’ve got much more to do and important questions that need urgent answers, but I’m deeply thankful for everyone—activists, clinicians, scientists, everyone—who acts in solidarity with those suffering from a disease too often ignored.”
Further Reading
Johnson & Johnson Letting Nonprofit Distribute Life-Saving Generic Tuberculosis Drug—Greatly Expanding Access In Poorer Countries (Forbes)
Breakthrough For Tuberculosis—One Of The World’s Biggest Killers—As New Vaccine Shows Promise In Early Trials (Forbes)
Tuberculosis Deaths Are Rising Again As Covid Pandemic Unravels Years Of Progress (Forbes)