English – Page 25 – ITPC Global

ITPC Welcomes Evidence for Early Start to HIV Treatment

The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) welcomes encouraging new evidence from an international study, Strategic Timing of AntiRetroviral Treatment, or START for short.

“It is exciting to see that we now have data that provides concrete evidence of the clinical benefits of starting people early on HIV treatment,” explains Christine Stegling, Executive Director of ITPC. “The results were so positive that the study was interrupted early so that all participants could benefit from the new evidence.” The large randomized trial showed that people starting treatment early (more than CD4 500) were 53% more likely to avoid serious illness and death, compared to people who started treatment later (less than CD4 350). ITPC celebrates this significant breakthrough.
There are still outstanding questions, about the implications for long-term adherence, the level of viral suppression and the long-term impact of early treatment initiation on drug resistance. Now, more than ever, we need to find answers to these questions. There is a huge need to understand HIV treatment seeking behaviors, especially the barriers facing people around getting tested, starting treatment, and subsequently staying on treatment. ITPC calls on the scientific community, donors, national health authorities and international normative guidance agencies to embrace the new evidence and plan a way forward that involves finding answers to these questions. It is critical that people living with HIV and communities are at the center of follow-up research, treatment conversations and strategies for implementation.
Many commentators have already raised the issue of the potential high costs of initiating everybody, who needs treatment, earlier. According to UNAIDS fewer than 13 million out of 35 million people living with HIV are accessing treatment.
“We should not perpetuate this narrative of scarce resources for adequate health care. Resources exist to ensure everybody can fulfill their right to health and life,” explains Stegling. “Prices for medicines and diagnostics could be more affordable if the global community and national governments stopped allowing pharmaceutical companies to get away with outrageously unfair and monopolistic practices. It is time to remove patent barriers that make essential medicines unaffordable for the people who need them.”
ITPC Caribbean
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ITPC Eastern Europe and Central Asia
ITPC Latin America
ITPC Middle East and North Africa
ITPC South Asia
ITPC West Africa
About ITPC:
ITPC is a global coalition of HIV treatment activists formed in 2003 to respond to the needs of communities worldwide. Structured in nine regions, the global network is driven by individual activists, peer support groups, grassroots networks, community-based organizations, and non-governmental organizations (see list below).
Each of these entities share our values and vision and come together to address issues around access to treatment issues in their countries, regions and at the global level. The Coalition includes organizations and networks run by key populations – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI), sex workers and people who use drugs – as well as others marginalized within the current HIV response, such as women, girls and migrants. As a Coalition rooted in the Global South, ITPC established its global office in Botswana in early 2015.

ITPC Global

5 Jun 2015

Press
Activists in Ukraine hold critical roundtable on patent barriers on medicines

On April 15, 2015, the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS convened a roundtable meeting titled Patent Barriers on Medicines: Potential Opportunities to Overcome the Barriers. The meeting brought together representatives of Indian and Ukrainian generic manufacturers in order to identify opportunities to overcome patent barriers through the use of compulsory licensing, patent oppositions, patent invalidation court actions and patent law reform.
Discussions were led by five presentations, each focusing on a different aspect of the Ukrainian patent system and its implications on access to medicines.
Sergey Kondratyuk, the Head of Advocacy and Legal Support for the All-Ukrainian Network of PLWHA, presented existing methods of overcoming patent barriers, emphasizing that the current system of patent protection is ineffective for securing public health and that compulsory licensing, patent reform and patent oppositions are the most effective methods to overcoming patent barriers. It was demonstrated that, in Ukraine, replacing five key patented antiretroviral medicines with generics (via compulsory licensing) can save nearly 127 million UAH or 8.7 million USD annually.
Mr. Kondratyuk also highlighted the key directions for patent reform in Ukraine, including:
– simplification of compulsory licensing procedures;
– introduction of patent opposition procedure;
– definition of strict criteria’s of medicines patentability (including legislative provision on unpatentability of therapeutic and diagnostic methods, secondary use, minor alteration of form and/or dosage etc.);
– introduction of international exhaustion of patent rights; and
– implementation of limitation provisions such as Bolar exception and experimental use.

Oksana Kashyntseva, Head of the Center for Harmonization of Human Rights and Intellectual Property Rights and Head of the Industrial Property Department at National Intellectual Property Research Institute, elaborated on the potential directions of patent reform and the impact on access to medicines. She discussed how the Ukrainian legislation allows granting of utility model patents with regard to medicines. However, the patentability requirements for utility model versus invention are different. Considering that utility model may have no inventive step, addition of any new feature ensures its patentability. This legislative provision allows for “evergreening” and limits access to medicines. Ms. Kashyntseva discussed potential legal amendments that should be introduced to the Law of Ukraine on protection of inventions and utility models in order to increase accessibility to medicines.
Anton Lipuhin, former Head of Legal and Informational Department at State Enterprise «State Expert Center of MoH of Ukraine» (Ukrainian DRA), expounded on the mitigation strategies of the data exclusivity regime in Ukraine. Mr. Lipuhin emphasized the importance of TRIPS flexibilities for establishing balance between public and private interests. He proposed the following potential amendments to mitigate the data exclusivity regime in Ukraine:
– introducing a “3+2+1” data exclusivity scheme (3 years data exclusivity, 2 years market exclusivity, and opportunity of prolongation up to 1 year in case new indication is discovered);
– restricting data exclusivity regime only to medicines that have new chemical compound(s);
– adjusting the data exclusivity period to be counted in from the date of first market authorization of medicine anywhere in the world; and
– extending compulsory licensing on the medicines protected by data exclusivity.
Mykyta Trofymenko from the All-Ukrainian Network of PLWHA presented on compulsory licensing and the normative obstacles for this mechanism in Ukraine. He reported on the critical gaps in Compulsory Licensing Regulation. To strengthen the regulations he proposed to:
– harmonize procedure of compulsory license and the Law of Ukraine «On medicines»;
– improve terminology used in Compulsory Licensing Regulation;
– harmonize with the TRIPS Agreement the pre-conditions to the CL request;
– clarify the procedure of voluntary license negotiations;
– simplifying formula for calculation of adequate renumeration; and
– provide a provision on overcoming data exclusivity by the mechanism of compulsory licensing.
The last presenter, Petro Borovyk, managing partner of the patent agency Borovyk & Partners, presented on strategies of patent invalidation actions. He demonstrated practical aspects of forensic expertise in this category of court cases. He also explained the practical steps behind drafting patent and invalidation claims and the grounds for standing before the court.
Following the presentations, representatives from the Ukrainian generic ARV manufacturers stated their willingness to use compulsory licensing – but urged that procedures provided in the Compulsory Licensing Regulation need to be strengthened to address current gaps.
A version of this summary is available in Russian here: http://www.apteka.ua/article/330223

ITPC Global

3 Jun 2015

Our Impact
Thousands of activists urge company to change its policies on eve of shareholder meeting
New York, May 5, 2015 — On the eve of pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences’ annual shareholder meeting, thousands of people who have hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HCV/HIV coinfection, with their allies and physicians, have demanded that Gilead change its policies that deny access to treatment for millions of people in developing countries.
“Gilead must immediately stop blocking access to affordable generic hepatitis C treatment—and abolish egregious ‘anti-diversion’ measures that violate patient rights,” said Othman Mellouk of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition.
Hepatitis C is a global public health crisis—called a “viral time bomb” by the World Health Organization— with at least 150 million people living with the disease. Untreated hepatitis C can progress to cirrhosis, liver failure, and liver cancer. Every year, at least 700,000 people die from these complications—although HCV can be easily cured with just 12 weeks of oral direct-acting antiviral (DAA) drugs. But most people don’t have access to the DAAs sofosbuvir (Sovaldi) and the sofosbuvir/ledipasvir combination (Harvoni) because Gilead prices them exorbitantly, and many developing countries are excluded from Gilead’s treatment expansion plans.
Sofosbuvir, priced in the United States at $84,000 per 12-week treatment course, is unaffordable even for high-income countries. Meanwhile, research from Liverpool University shows that the 12-week course can be mass-produced for just US$101.
Gilead has signed licensing agreements with 11 Indian generics producers imposing geographic limits on where affordable HCV medicines can be sold, instead of creating access to generic versions of these drugs. While the HCV pandemic is overwhelmingly concentrated in “middle-income countries”—where most of the world’s poorest people live on less than US$1.50 per day—Gilead sees these countries as profitable markets and has no plans to sell affordable generic treatment in 51 middle-income countries, home to 49 million people with HCV.
“While Gilead is reaping record profits on its HCV drugs (US$12.4 billion in 2014), it refuses to provide affordable, lifesaving treatment to a staggering 49 million people,” said Karyn Kaplan of Treatment Action Group.
It is widely acknowledged that unrestricted generic competition is the most effective strategy for reducing the price of medicines. However, Gilead’s voluntary licenses restrict raw materials for the drugs, dictate where these lifesaving drugs can be sold, and impose barriers to access for patients—all to protect its profits.
“Gilead could be taking steps right now to advance public health and allow millions of people to be cured of this disease,” said Dr. Jennifer Cohn, medical director of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign. “Instead, it has inflated drug prices and created additional barriers to treatment scale-up—at the cost of people’s lives.”
Further, Gilead requires its licensees to institute so-called anti-diversion measures. Patients must prove citizenship, provide their medical records, and agree to be tracked—and return empty pill bottles in person on a biweekly or monthly basis, in some cases having to provide viral suppression information to be eligible for the next bottle. These and other measures violate patient confidentiality and autonomy, interfere with doctor-patient and pharmacistpatient relationships, and may compromise adherence and treatment outcomes. Gilead’s program, with commercial interest as the sole motivating factor, is without precedent.
“Just as Gilead has said it will strongly defend its intellectual property rights, we will strongly defend the human rights of those who need access to these drugs,” said Vikas Ahuja, president of the Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+).
A petition presented to Gilead today stated:
“We, over 3,000 people with HCV and our physicians and allies, urge Gilead to immediately remedy the terms of these licenses and support affordable access, by:
- expanding geographic coverage of the licenses to include the 51 middle-income countries that are currently excluded;
- removing restrictions on producing and sourcing of sofosbuvir and ledipasvir’s active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), since the cost of APIs is linked to the cost of the final product offered by generic companies; and
- modifying unethical anti-diversion requirements to ensure that they do not limit or impede patient access.” We believe in equitable access to lifesaving HCV treatment for all who need it.
CONTACTS:
Health GAP Brook Baker, B.Baker@neu.edu + 1(617) 259 0760 (Boston)
Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK) Priti Radhakrishnan, priti@i-mak.org +1 (917) 703 2876 (California)
International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) Othman Mellouk, omellouk@itpcglobal.com + 212 (0)6 66 45 28 11 (Morocco)
Médecins du Monde (MdM) Céline Grillon, celine.grillon@medecinsdumonde.net + 33 (0) 6 50 01 39 10 (Paris)
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Sandra Murillo, sandra.murillo@newyork.msf.org + 1 (212) 763 5765 (New York)
Treatment Action Group (TAG) Karyn Kaplan, karyn.kaplan@treatmentactiongroup.org + 1 (646)-316-8979 (New York)
Global Health Justice Partnership, Yale University Gregg Gonsalves, gregg.gonsalves@yale.edu + 1 (203) 606 9149 (New York)

NOTE TO EDITORS:
Link to petition: http://www.petitionbuzz.com/PETITIONS/HEPC
For more information on the minimum cost of HCV DAA production: van de Ven, N., Fortunak, J., Simmons, B., Ford, N., Cooke, G. S., Khoo, S. and Hill, A. (2015), Minimum target prices for production of direct-acting antivirals and associated diagnostics to combat hepatitis C virus. Hepatology, 61: 1174–1182. doi: 10.1002/hep.27641
For more information on Gilead’s voluntary license program: http://www.msfaccess.org/content/fact-sheet-gileads-chronic-hepatitis-c-… For more information on Gilead’s anti-diversion program: http://www.msfaccess.org/content/barriers-access-and-scale-hepatitis-c-h…
ITPC Global

3 Jun 2015

Press
Civil Society Opposes Patent Application on HIV Drug Truvada® In a Bid to Stop Argentina From Paying 30 Times More Than Other Countries
The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) supports the patent pre-grant opposition that was filed on 13 April 2015 by the Fundación Grupo Efecto Positivo (FGEP) and the Argentinian Network of Positive People (Redar Positive). The patent was filed at Argentina’s patent office and challenges the validity of a patent application submitted by Gilead Sciences on the anti-HIV combination of tenofovir (TDF) + emtricitabine (FTC).
Known under its trademark name as Truvada®, this medicine is listed by World Health Organization (WHO) among preferred antiretrovirals for treatment of HIV infection. Truvada® is recommended as a key drug to prevent HIV transmission among key populations who are at higher risk of infection. Although the drug is widely available at an affordable price in several developing countries, it is marketed in Argentina at an excessively high price. The price of Truvada® in Argentina is US$2,304 per person, per year even though generic versions of the combination are available on the market, including in other similar middle-income countries, for approximately US$70 per person, per year . Every year, Argentina spends over US$12 million on this drug alone. This constitutes 23% of the entire National AIDS Program annual budget and provides enormous profits to Gilead who charges the country a price 30 times higher than lowest generic price.
Patent opposition is a process that allows third parties like civil society or generic competitors to challenge the validity of a patent based on patentability criteria. “We are asking the patent office to reject Gilead’s application for tenofovir + emtricitabine (TDF+FTC) because this combination does not meet the patentability requirements set out in Article 4 of Argentina’s Patent Act”, said Lorena Di Giano, Executive Director of Fundacion Grupo Efecto Positivo (FGEP). “This Act grants patents provided that they are novel, involve inventive activity and have an industrial application. Truvada® is the combination of two known drugs TDF and FTC that are already in the public domain and do not constitute an invention or an innovation. This patent should simply be rejected. There is no reason Argentina spends taxpayer’s money quenching Gilead’s thirst for scandalously huge profits.”
ITPC’s Executive Director, Christine Stegling explained, “the delay in resolving this abusive patent application has discouraged generic manufacturers from entering the Argentina market. Rejecting Gilead’s application would open the door to generic competition and could result in annual savings of nearly US$11.4 million. This patent opposition is the first of a series of patent interventions ITPC and the Initiative for Medicines, Access, & Knowledge (I-MAK) are carrying-out in partnership with our in-country partners in four key middle-income countries (Argentina, Brazil, Thailand and Ukraine). Our interventions aim to protect access to HIV treatment and ensure production of affordable generics by challenging unmerited patents and removing intellectual property barriers”.

For further information contact:
- Lorena Di Giano, Executive Director, FGEP at lorenadigiano@gmail.com
  +5492234233278
- Othoman Mellouk, Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines Lead, ITPC at o.mellouk@gmail.com
  +212666452811
- Christine Stegling, Executive Director, ITPC at cstegling@itpcglobal.com
About the Organizations:
The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) is a global movement of people living with HIV, treatment activists and their supporters dedicated to treatment access for all in need. For more information visit the website www.itpcglobal.org
Fundacion Grupo Efectivo Positivo (FGEP) is an Argentinian non governmental organization that promotes HIV treatment access through political/social engagement and policy dialogue on ARV patents, working with broad network of government and civil society partners.
ITPC is leading a consortium of civil society organizations funded by UNITAID to address barriers to treatment access in four middle-income countries including Argentina.
ITPC Global

3 Jun 2015

Press
ACT Toolkit launches in English, French, Russian and Spanish

News summary
On Human Rights Day, the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) is proud to announce that our Advocacy for Community Treatment (ACT) Toolkit is now available in English, French, Spanish and Russian. The ACT Toolkit facilitates community activists to become effective advocates for HIV treatment access. It includes a special focus on supporting key populations and ensuring everyone’s right to health is respected.
Topics covered in the participatory Toolkit include: the science of HIV, the relationship between human rights and treatment, how trade impacts the availability of medicines, financing for health and community advocacy planning. The Toolkit provides critical education on opportunities and barriers for treatment scale-up, as well as practical guidance on how to mobilize communities.
The Toolkit was produced under Bridging the Gaps – health and rights for key populations. As part of the 2013-2015 Bridging the Gaps programme, ITPC provides US$480,000 in grant funding to 18 grassroots initiatives by and for key affected populations of people living with HIV. The ACT Toolkit provides key population groups an additional resource for developing treatment advocacy skills.
To support grassroots groups to develop their own workshops, a series of PowerPoint presentations that correspond to the main Toolkit sections are also available. Community organizations are encouraged to select the modules most relevant to their context and develop tailored trainings to meet the needs of local activists.
Download the ACT Toolkit
English
French
Spanish
Russian

Toolkit PowerPoints
English
French
Spanish
Russian

ITPC Global

7 Apr 2015

Updates
A Step Back for Millions of People with Hepatitis C

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

A Step Back for Millions of People with Hepatitis C: Why Gilead’s Recent Deal with Generic Producers for its Hepatitis C Drugs (Sofosbuvir and Ledipasvir) is a Sham

Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Treatment: Gilead Sciences Voluntary License

Under the pretext of increasing access to its hepatitis C treatment, the new deal signed by Gilead for their HCV drugs sofosbuvir (Sovaldi©) and ledipasvir hides a clear strategy to prevent fair generic competition. Gilead, a U.S.-based pharmaceutical company, has left millions of people with hepatitis C —worldwide — without access to life-saving treatment. The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) denounces Gilead’s strategy to block generic competition. ITPC calls on governments across the world to take action to ensure that an HCV cure will be available and accessible at the lowest price possible, using all the flexibilities allowed under the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement including possibilities to develop local production, and use competition/antitrust laws.
On September 15th, Gilead Sciences announced a voluntary license with seven Indian-based generic companies that allows production and sale of their new hepatitis C drugs sofosbuvir (Sovaldi©) and ledipasvir in 91 countries. The licenses are mainly for low-income (LICs) and least developed countries (LDCs), and includes only a few middle-income countries (MICs). Sofosbuvir (Sovaldi©), now on the market, and ledipasvir, soon to be approved, are Direct-Acting Antivirals (DAAs) demonstrating high cure rates when used in combination with other drugs to treat HCV.
Gilead claims that their licenses will improve access to HCV treatment and cure globally, but in reality, 51 key MICs with a high burden of HCV are excluded from the deal. This initiative has little chance to improve global HCV treatment access, since (unlike HIV) the highest burden of the disease is located in upper- and middle-income countries, where 73% of the world’s 185 million people infected by HCV worldwide live.
According to Christine Stegling, Executive Director of ITPC: “In the absence of a global mechanism to fund HCV treatment in the poorest countries in the world, it is very unlikely that this license will have a significant impact. Additionally, this license leaves out developing countries that have shown leadership by putting in place treatment programs and investing domestic resources to treat their people. We know from the past that voluntary licenses can have major limitations as they do not always lead to production or export and originator companies often do not bother registering their product in poorest countries. This ultimately prevents generic producers from registering their products in the country. In the case of this license, the originator company Gilead, has not given any timeline regarding their registration process in these 91 countries”.
While the anticipated impact of the license in the covered countries remains theoretical and uncertain, we know that Gilead’s deal will immediately block access to generic HCV treatment in excluded countries, even where there are no patent barriers. Developing countries from Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East, as well as Eastern Europe and South, Southeast and Central Asia cannot afford the high prices offered by Gilead or the “discounted prices”, given the sheer number of people in need of treatment and care-related costs.
Excluded countries include: China (30 million people with HCV), Brazil (2.6 million), the Philippines (1.9 million), Turkey (1.5 million), Thailand (1.4 million) and Mexico (1.1 million).
For ITPC, the license is a step back from the international consensus on use of the flexibilities included in the TRIPS agreement to protect public health and access to medicines. Gilead’s license territory includes LDCs, which have until 2021 to implement the TRIPS agreement and are not under obligation to grant patents. The licensing agreements also provide a rationale for market monopolies in excluded countries where Gilead has no patents, nor the right to claim a monopoly.
“There are no patents on sofosbuvir in India and several other countries that these generic companies could have sold to. These licenses are clearly designed by Gilead to prevent competition, which means that millions will go without access to this drug.” said Tahir Amin, Director of Intellectual Property at I-MAK.org, which has filed patent oppositions on the drug in India. “There is a high probability that Gilead’s patents will be rejected by patent offices around the world, and yet today’s license will stop these generic companies from supplying those countries.”
In November 2013 and March 2014, The Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+) and Initiative for Medicine and Access to Knowledge (I-MAK) filed a pre-grant oppositions application challenging the validity of key patent applications for sofosbuvir in India. The Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV (APN+) with Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust and Hepatitis Coalition Nagaland – represented by Lawyers Collective (LC) – filed another opposition in September 2014. A patent has already been rejected twice by the Egyptian patent office for lack of novelty and inventiveness.
“By unlocking access to generic sofosbuvir, the governments of countries left out of the license could save at least US$60 billion dollars, according to our analysis,” stated Priti Radhakrishnan, Director of Treatment Access at I-MAK.org. “We urge these country governments to take urgent action to reject the patents on sofosbuvir and ensure this drug reaches the people whose lives depend upon it.”
According to I-MAK’s analysis, the cost of the exclusion of most MICs from Gilead’s license will be extremely high. For example, if Gilead charges Latin American countries US$7,000 for a course of sofosbuvir, it would require the Argentinian health authorities to overspend (their existing budget) by US$5 billion, and the Brazilian health authorities to overspend by US$17.3 billion, to provide access to these new drugs without generic competition. Even in the unlikely scenario that Gilead were to lower its price as low as US$1,567 for excluded countries, the amount these countries would overspend would be prohibitive: in China US$36.7 billion, in Morocco US$736 million in Thailand US$1.9 billion, and in Ukraine US$2.9 billion.
Another point of concern is that Gilead’s license also excludes sales of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) used as raw materials for local production to non-partners of Gilead, even in countries included in the license. “This is terrible news for countries who have capacity to produce their own medicines,” said Othoman Mellouk, Regional Advocacy Coordinator of ITPC in The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), “In countries like Egypt where 20 million people are infected with HCV, governments will not be able to secure treatment for all even with the discounted price provided by Gilead. The country started working recently on local production of sofosbuvir to ensure sustainability of treatment. Now, with this license, local manufacturers will not be able to buy APIs anymore from Indian suppliers. Egypt will now have to completely rely on generic producers selected by Gilead – which essentially means just replacing a monopoly with another. Although this country is covered by the license and the patent on sofosbuvir is not granted, free and fair generic competition is just not possible anymore, thanks to Gilead’s move.”
“Gilead announced its licensing agreements as a means to increase access in developing countries. It should be clear by now that these agreements that are based on voluntary licenses, are not intended to promote access, but to segment markets and increase company profits,” stated Marcela Vieira, coordinator of GTPI/Rebrip – Working Group on Intellectual Property of the Brazilian Network for Integration of Peoples in Brazil.
“It is important to recognize that Gilead’s licenses are a wolf dressed as a lamb. They will hinder access for millions of people in desperate need of HCV treatment, and harm the entire generic industry,” stated Tracy Swan, Hepatitis/HIV Project Director at Treatment Action Group in New York City.
ITPC has noted with deep concern that the leading Indian generic company Cipla is among the companies who have signed this deal with Gilead. In the HIV field, Cipla has demonstrated a proactive approach to develop generic versions of unpatented medicines in India, and opposed abusive patents in collaboration with community and consumer groups. The company’s leadership has been an inspiration for other generic producers and garnered respect and trust from civil society and community groups worldwide. Today, ITPC is deeply concerned that by entering into such license with Gilead, Cipla will deprive many developing countries of an important source of procurement of affordable and quality generic medicines that could save millions of lives, especially in middle-income countries.
“We denounce Gilead’s attempts to block generic competition and urge them to amend this license to allow all those in need to access treatment regardless where they live. Our movement calls on governments across the world to take action to ensure that an HCV cure will be available and accessible at the lowest price possible.” Gregg Gonsalves, Interim Chair of the Global Advisory Board of ITPC.
For further information please contact:
Pauline Londeix, IP and Access Advisor, ITPC MENA, at pauline.londeix@gmail.com
Othoman Mellouk, Regional Coordinator, ITPC MENA, at o.mellouk@gmail.com
Christine Stegling, Executive Director, ITPC at cstegling@itpcglobal.com

ITPC Global

6 Apr 2015

Press
ITPC Launches 2015-2017 Strategic Plan

Following an intensive period of internal reflection and external review, ITPC is proud to present our new strategic plan. The new plan will guide our work over the next three years and outlines how we plan to increase access to sustainable treatment of HIV, TB and Hepatitis C through community activism.
As reflected in this plan, ITPC’s work is guided by our understanding that access to HIV treatment is a human right. Our work as HIV advocates and activists embraces ‘health’ as defined by WHO which, in the HIV context, encompasses (a) sustainable access to treatment and health care, food and clean water, adequate housing, employment, harm reduction services that include substitution therapy and clean syringes for drug users, and sexual and reproductive health services; and (b) freedom from discrimination and stigma that results in inequities based on gender or sexual orientation, behavior, type of work and socio-economic status. As a dynamic coalition of HIV treatment and health rights activists from the Global South, we look forward to expanding our network to align with broader social justice movements.
Download and read the full strategic plan here.

ITPC Global

6 Apr 2015

Updates
ITPC and ARASA Host Advocacy Workshop on Global Fund Resources and Sustainable Funding for HIV & TB in Botswana, Malawi and Tanzania
On 9-13 March 2015, ITPC, in collaboration with the Aids and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), facilitated an HIV and TB financing activist workshop aimed at strengthening key population advocacy for the best use of Global Fund resources and sustainable funding for HIV & TB in Botswana, Malawi and Tanzania. The meeting brought together 13 key population activists and leaders from strategic organizations in all 3 focus countries ranging from those led by and serving people who use drugs, sex workers, women and LGBTI people. Experts from The Global Forum on MSM (MSMGF), the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), the Center for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa (CEGAA), and the Global Fund itself also contributed to the workshop. ITPC’s Regional Coordinators in West, Central and East Africa, who are leading community monitoring projects supported by the German Backup Initiative (GIZ) also supported the facilitation of the meeting and group discussions. Lively debates and discussions around the importance of key population representation and key population issues being not just a part of CCM talks, but ensuring that this translates into funding for programming for those most affected by HIV and TB made the meeting a forum for information-sharing and advocacy agenda-setting. Health finance and budget tracking as a means to more evidence-based and effective advocacy was identified as a key capacity gap among key populations and is an area that ITPC is actively following up on for further technical support. The meeting culminated with each country developing (either joint or by organization) a peer- and facilitator-reviewed advocacy work plan that would form part of their application for direct support through a closed request for proposals from ITPC/ARASA.
The agenda was organized in order to fulfill the following objectives:
1. Review the fundamentals of HIV and TB financing [including national, international, innovative financing options, government commitments (Abuja et al), government contributions].
2. Discuss the Global Fund as a mechanism for funding HIV and TB and the New Funding Model [including history, architecture, in-country processes, entry points for civil society, key affected populations, replenishment advocacy].
3. Discuss HIV and TB financing advocacy with an emphasis on (but not limited to) national and international investment in health, Global Fund processes and Global Fund replenishment advocacy
4. Explore ways to expand advocacy for increased national and international investment in community-led evidence informed human rights programming [with an emphasis on (but not limited to) intellectual property issues, HIV & the Law Commission recommendations, issues for key populations groups such as criminalization of HIV transmission, legal and policy reform, access to services and commodities]
5. Strategic small group work for the development of action plans / capacity strengthening and advocacy plans for activists to cascade the learning to their peers at country level, expand and strengthen meaningful engagement of key populations across Global Fund related processes and platforms and advocate for better investment of Global Fund and other resources.
6. Explore opportunities for further collaboration and support among organizations and with ARASA/ITPC.
ITPC Global

6 Apr 2015

Our Impact
"We are the doctors!"

by Christine Stegling, ITPC Executive Director

In the middle of this run-down neighbourhood in Belem, Brazil, we reach the community centre run by the Group of Women Prostitutes of the State of Para (GEMPAC), a colourful and warm room filled with an expectant and energetic group of about 15 women. As we settle down to start our discussions, somebody gets up to lock the bars in front of the doors! People passing in the street outside can still see us but there is now a visible barrier between the lively and colourful group inside and the community outside.

We are gathered here to discuss their work and, in particular, a small grant they have received from ITPC as part of the Bridging the Gaps programme. The discussions start with their very obvious passion for self organising as sex workers. One of their main concerns is the fact that women in sex work need to identify as sex workers because, as they say, “how will others accept us and respect us as professionals when we are not proudly calling ourselves sex workers?”. While the group we are talking to is making a very strong claim for the political space they need to occupy as sex workers, they admit not all sex workers share that vision and many find it difficult to counter the stigma and rejection they experience from the community. As part of their ITPC-funded project, which they called VIDDA (meaning “life” in Portuguese) they developed and administered a questionnaire within their community to better understand the obstacles that sex workers face when engaging with health services. Only 85 of the 115 women they interviewed self-identified as sex workers, which the group perceives as one of their main challenges.
About half the women we talk with on this hot and humid afternoon are living with HIV and all talk openly and emphatically about how important treatment and prevention education is for sex workers in their community.

So here I am hearing from several women in the group about how they had tested positive many years ago, how they had initiated treatment and taken it for some time but had discontinued for a variety of reasons. Maria talks about the fact that after starting treatment she noticed that ARVs were changing her body, that she was gaining and losing weight in the ‘wrong’ places and that she started having problems with her body image. Her body is her capital for her work and she started feeling bad about her appearance so she stopped taking the medicine. Clara says she tested positive in 2000 and started on medication but she experienced memory loss and often could not remember whether she had taken her medicine and so she had to go through repeated treatment initiation which she found difficult to deal with. Paula talks about her particular issues as an indigenous person living with HIV and working as a sex worker. She says the different levels of stigma and rejection led to her stop treatment. So many stories but all united in a couple of themes: here are women in a country with free ARVs and a comparatively well-resourced health system. They all started on medicines and they all discontinued because they had very little knowledge about their treatment, they could not access services that were taking into consideration their professional context and particular needs as sex workers and, in the end, the only reason they re-engaged with the treatment programme was because they were approached by their treatment knowledgable peers through the VIDDA project.
They are united in their understanding that the VIDDA project has actually saved lives because they have been able to develop communication materials which supported those women in the group who are openly living with HIV to talk to other sex workers about treatment, about side effects, about how to monitor your treatment and how to make decisions about your treatment. As Teresa says: ‘We are the doctors!’
And this is exactly what ITPC has been advocating for at global level for so many years: for treatment programmes to work in the long run, you need to support community-initiated and -run treatment education projects. And this is what donors and governments find so hard to understand which is why there is a growing lack of such programmes across the globe.
I am feeling a mix of excitement and frustration at the same time. Excitement about these incredibly energetic and motivated women who live in an environment that for me as an outsider feels incredibly violent and unsafe, presenting itself with a multitude of challenges but who are committed to treatment and prevention education in their community. Frustrated that as ITPC we can only make such a small contribution to treatment education in this community, which is so obviously the key for people to not fall off the treatment cascade that our friends in the global health agencies like to discuss in so many meetings. So we know what works, we have live evidence that it does (though maybe not through ‘randomised controlled trials’) yet it is so hard to get political and financial buy-in to do more of it. My short visit here has reconfirmed my strong belief that affected communities are the best advocates, not only for treatment access but also for treatment adherence and, ultimately, for sustainable programmes that initiate patients early enough and are able to keep them on treatment in the long run.
As we leave the warm and supportive atmosphere of the centre into the pouring Amazonian rain to get into Flora’s car, we are reminded of the tough neighbourhood these amazing women live in as we discover that the wipers of the car we had parked outside during our meeting have been stolen. Flora does not even blink an eyelid on this as we drive into the relentless rain; it’s the second time this week this has happened to her. Life goes on…..

GEMPAC is a self-organizing coalition of prostitutes and their supports working to empower women to overcome stigma, prejudice and the barriers that prevent access to optimal HIV treatment. Officially founded in May 1, 1990, GEMPAC has been around since 1987. A state-sanctioned non-profit NGO of Public Municipal Utility, the group has regional and national representatives, being a founding member of the Brazilian Network of Prostitutes (RBP). Internationally, it comprises part of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP). Participative, social and political, GEMPAC has a permanent presence in decision-making spheres and social control, with representatives on forums, networks and relevant councils.

ITPC Global

6 Apr 2015

Our Impact
ITPC and Partners Meet to Launch New Project on Access to HIV treatment in Middle-income Countries

The project, which is supported by UNITAID, will take place over the next three years and aims to remove patent barriers to generic competition in Argentina, Brazil, Ukraine and Thailand by reforming patent laws, challenging undeserved patents and advocating for the selective use of compulsory licenses.
The three-day meeting was held at the Merlin Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and was dedicated to reviewing project plans, sharing targeted intervention strategies and team building.
The meeting’s 22 participants are members of the project’s global consortium led by ITPC. The consortium includes key organizations from each of the four target countries: the Fundacion Grupo Efecto Positivo (Argentina), Associacao Brasileria Interdisciplinar de AIDS (Brazil), AIDS Access Foundation (Thailand), the All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH (Ukraine); as well as the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK) – a technical partner.
The consortium looks forward to sharing further updates in the near future!

ITPC Global

6 Apr 2015

Our Impact
Take Action

Sign ITPC’s petition to Gilead

A recent decision by India’s Patent Office rejecting one of Gilead’s key patents for sofosbuvir is an important step for treatment activists. But Gilead is using every trick in the book to get the decision reversed, including lobbying the Indian Government.
Sign our petition today to expand Hep C treatment!

ITPC Global

2 Apr 2015

Updates
ITPC and ARASA host workshop on Intellectual Property and Free Trade Agreements for activists in Johannesburg

News summary
On November 24-28, 2014, the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) held a joint workshop training, titled Community Involvement in Access to Affordable HIV Treatment: Focus on the Influence of Intellectual Property & Free Trade Agreements, at the Aviator Hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The four day training aimed to equip human rights and treatment activist leaders with skills, tools, resources and opportunities to influence decisions-makers in their countries to increase access to optimal treatment for HIV and co-infections with an emphasis on intellectual property and trade intervention using a human rights framework.
The workshop’s 14 participants, who came from across the African region, reviewed the basics of HIV and HIV treatment, discussed human rights and intellectual property as they relate to access to HIV treatment, and developed advocacy plans for country access to affordable HIV treatment. Training sessions were developed and adapted from ITPC’s Advocacy for Community Treatment (ACT) Toolkit.
Following the workshop, ITPC and ARASA issued a closed request for proposals to the participants. The available grants will support country-level advocacy for increased community access to affordable optimal HIV treatment. The proposed work will take place over a 10-month period beginning in March 2015.
This training and the subsequent advocacy activities are part of a larger effort to increase HIV treatment access supported by the Robert Carr civil society Networks Fund.
ITPC and ARASA look forward to sharing further updates in the new year.
For more information on the ACT Toolkit, click here.

ITPC Global

2 Apr 2015

Our Impact