The costly tuberculosis (TB) drug bedaquiline, a lifesaver in more difficult cases, will be available in generic form to many low- and middle-income countries around the world, under a surprise agreement announced July 13, 2023. The accord was negotiated quietly between Johnson & Johnson and international group Stop TB Partnership, which provides TB drugs to lower income countries around the world.
Activists such as Doctors Without Borders and The Fault in Our Stars author John Green, who led a furor on Twitter, had worried the drug company would use patents in many countries to limit access.
But what is bedaquiline, and why has it become such a flashpoint?
The Largest Killer
Despite relatively low case numbers in the U.S. and other high-income countries, TB remains a major threat around the world, killing 1.5 million people a year. That has made it the deadliest infectious disease on the planet, a title eclipsed only briefly by COVID-19 during the worst of the pandemic.
