J&J Allows Generic Version of TB Drug After YouTube Video Airs

Following a fiery social media post, Johnson & Johnson has agreed to grant licenses to Stop TB Partnership’s global drug facilities to middle and low income countries to produce generic versions of its Sirturo (bedaquiline), the first new drug to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in 50 years.

YouTuber John Green had posted a vlog, “Barely Contained Rage: An Open Letter to Johnson & Johnson” on July 12 claiming that J&J, upon the expiration of the drug’s patent on July 18, intended to invoke the protection of a secondary patent on the drug’s pen cap to prevent the drug from being marketed as a generic, “thus denying access to bedaquiline to around six million people over the next four years.”

J&J fired back on Twitter, saying that “It is false to suggest — as some recently have — that our patents are being used to prevent access to Sirturo” and confirmed its plan to collaborate “with the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility — the largest procurer of TB medicines — which enables them to invite potential generic suppliers and purchase generic versions” of the drug.

Watch the YouTube video here.

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