Tibotec Pharmaceuticals today announced that it has granted multiple non-exclusive licenses to generic manufacturers including Hetero Drugs Limited, Matrix Laboratories Limited (a Mylan company) of India and Aspen Pharmacare of South Africa to manufacture, market and distribute the investigational non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor rilpivirine hydrochloride (TMC278), pending its approval for use with other antiretroviral agents in the treatment of treatment-naïve HIV-1 infected adults.
The generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in India will have rights to market the product in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and India. Aspen will have rights to market the product in SSA including South Africa. Under the agreement, the generic manufacturers will be entitled to manufacture once-daily 25 mg TMC278 as a single agent medicine and a fixed-dose combination (FDC) product. Fixed-dose combinations contain multiple medicines formulated into one tablet helping to simplify HIV therapy and are preferred by public health treatment programs. Tibotec has chosen to collaborate with multiple manufacturers in order to ensure the widespread and
sustainable access to, and supply of, TMC278 in areas of high HIV burden and to support generic competition.
Tibotec specializes in the research and development of new medicines for infectious diseases including HIV. It plays a key role in the Johnson & Johnson Global Access & Partnerships Program, which is committed to improving and saving lives by addressing unmet medical needs and ensuring the availability of HIV medicines to patients in need. The Program is already working, through existing agreements with generic manufacturers Aspen of South Africa and Emcure Pharmaceuticals Ltd of India to broaden access to the medicines darunavir and etravirine in SSA and LDCs and to darunavir in India.
