In a first, South Africa to produce injectable-HIV prevention drug

South Africa will soon start producing an affordable and generic version of the groundbreaking HIV-prevention drug, prophylaxis, long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA), for the first time, reported the United Kingdom-based newspaper, The Guardian, on Thursday (May 18). This comes as less than 40 per cent of medicines can be made on the continent as the production of medicines is largely concentrated in 38 countries.

What is CAB-LA?

The long-acting cabotegravir jab nearly eliminates the chance of a person being infected with HIV through sexual intercourse and costs far less than the branded version of the drug. The cabotegravir blocks the virus from entering a person’s cells. Studies have shown that CAB-LA works better than daily HIV-prevention pills which are available for free across many parts of the continent.

Since the branded version of CAB-LA sells for about $3,500 per injection in the United States and is sold at a lower price which manufacturers claim to offer to nearly 90 countries like South Africa, it is possibly too expensive for the government to buy, reportedThe Guardian. The injection needs to be administered every two months, as per the guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO).

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Where will the drug be produced?

According to the media report citing Indian drug company Cipla which later confirmed the news, the drug in question will be produced at plants in Benoni, near Johannesburg, and Durban. The move will potentially help millions of people at risk of HIV infection in Africa with access to the long-acting form of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

Licensing issues

The confirmation by Cipla follows an announcement back in March by the developers of CAB-LA, ViiV Healthcare, and the United Nations-backed Medicine Patent Pool (MPP) under which three companies were granted licenses to produce the drug, one of which is Cipla.

The two other companies, Aurobindo and Viatris, are also Indian companies which produce antiretroviral drugs for HIV treatment. According to the report by The Guardian, a pharmaceutical company require at least five years after the technology behind the manufacturing is shared for that product to be on the market.

ViiV holds the patent for CAB-LA until 2031 in South Africa, reported The Guardian, which means if it weren’t for the licenses granted to the generic alternatives the company would have no competition for the next eight years.

Notably, these disparities became prominentduring the COVID-19 pandemic when in early 2021, Africa was struggling to procure enough doses to vaccinate its population, whileWestern countries had bought up most of the stock of vaccines and had enough to vaccine their population several times.

This prompted India and South Africa to lead a campaign at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for intellectual property rights to be waived on Covid vaccines, medicines and tests.Therefore, intellectual property deals such as this one brokered by the MPP this timecan also lessen the impact of medicine shortages.

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