New TB treatment for developing countries to cost $1,040

The Commerce Ministry is working on a proposal to allow domestic companies to make payments in the rupee for services obtained from special economic zone units, sources said. The proposal is aimed at promoting the growth of IT units in SEZs. Currently, domestic firms are required to pay in foreign exchange for services rendered by a SEZ unit.

Senior IAS officer Sukhbir Singh Sandhu took over as the Chairman of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). Sandhu succeeds Nagendra Nath Sinha who has been appointed as the Secretary, Department of Border Management. Sandhu is from 1988 batch of the Uttarakhand cadre. He holds an MBBS degree and a Master's in History, besides a law degree.

A newly approved threedrug treatment for tuberculosis will be available in

150 countries including India and South Africa, priced at $1,040 for a complete regimen, more than twice the cost proposed in the past by advocacy groups for other treatments.

The United Nationsbacked Stop TB Partnership said on Monday that BPaL would be obtainable in eligible countries through the Global Drug Facility (GDF), a global provider of TB medicines created in

2001 to negotiate lower prices for treatments.

Tuberculosis was responsible for 1.5 million deaths in 2018.

BPaL is an oral treatment which promises a shorter, more convenient option to existing TB treatment options, which use a cocktail of antibiotic drugs over a period of up to two years.

The new cocktail, which will treat extensively drug-resistant strains of the illness, consists of drug developer TB Alliance’s newly-approved medicine pretomanid, in combination with linezolid and Johnson & Johnson’s bedaquiline.

Pretomanid, which will be available at $364 per treatment course, is only the third new medicine for drug-resistant tuberculosis to be approved in about 40 years, after J&J’s bedaquiline and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co Ltd’s delamanid.

Advocacy groups have long criticized the cost for bedaquiline and delamanid. Not-for-profit Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has waged a running battle in public with J&J over its $400 price tag for a six-month course for bedaquiline.

MSF has argued that bedaquiline could be produced and sold at a profit for 25 cents per day, and that the price of treatments

New Delhi, Oct 28: TB Alliance, a not-for-profit organisation, on Monday said it has granted a nonexclusive licence to manufacture anti-TB drug pretomanid to Macleods Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Macleods has agreed to commercialise the anti-tuberculosis (TB) medicine in about 140 countries and territories, including India, after getting the regulatory approvals, TB Alliance said in a statement.

“We are proud to partner with Macleods, which has a strong record of delivering high-quality, affordable tuberculosis medicines,” TB Alliance President and CEO Mel Spigelman said.

TB Alliance is committed to ensuring an affordable, sustainable and competitive market for all its new TB products, he added.

“This important collaboration with TB Alliance will ensure accessibility

for drug-resistant TB should be no higher than $500 for a complete treatment course. of pretomanid in countries where it is needed the most,” Macleods Business Development Director Vijay Agarwal said.

TB Alliance has earlier collaborated with Macleods on the introduction of child-friendly formulations of first-line TB medicines, the

Leena Menghaney, the South-Asia head for MSF’s Access Campaign, said it was a cause of concern statement said.

Meanwhile, Macleods Pharma USA Inc is recalling 31,968 bottles of Pioglitazone Hydrochloride tablets used for treatment of diabetes in the American market.

The tablets being recalled are in the strength of 15 mg and have been manufactured by Macleods Pharmaceuticals Ltd in its Baddi facility in Himachal Pradesh, an enforcement report of the USFDA said.

The voluntary ongoing class II recall is on account of the product being “superpotent'', it added.

As per the USFDA, a class II recall is initiated in a situation, “in which use of or exposure to a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote”.

that pretomanid was priced just below the price of bedaquiline.

But Stop TB Partnership says costs of other regimens for extremely drugresistant TB range from $2,000 to $8,000 for courses of at least 20 months.

TB Alliance in April granted a license to U.S. drugmaker Mylan NV to manufacture and sell pretomanid as part of certain regimens in high-income markets, as well as a nonexclusive license for lowincome and middleincome countries, where most tuberculosis cases occur.

Stop TB Partnership said it would start supplying the regimen following World Health Organization’s guidance on using the drug. Mylan, however, said it will also sell the drug directly to countries.

Prices in low-income countries would be in-line with the price offered through GDF, but would be decided on a case by case basis where the drug is not supplied through GDF, it said.

The drug will be available in bottles of 26 tablets, with a six-month treatment requiring seven bottles.