John Green Helped Save Countless Lives After J&J Pressure
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John Green led the charge against Johnson and Johnson’s move to extend their patent on a life-saving Tuberculosis drug and it looks like real change is coming! Right, on Tuesday, John Green posted a video on the vlogbrothers channel titled “Barely Contained Rage: An Open Letter to Johnson and Johnson.” And in it, he discussed Tuberculosis and the troubling number of people that still die annually to this usually curable disease - we’re talking about millions of people every year. But, in the early 2000’s, after decades of little development in TB drugs, Johnson and Johnson developed Bedaquiline. Now, as John tells it, the majority of the money for the development of Bedaquiline came from government funding - but Johnson and Johnson did invest some money, allowing them to file a patent for the drug in 2003. Meaning they’ve had the monopoly on this life-saving drug for 2 decades at this point. Now, that patent is set to expire next week - which would allow generic pharmaceutical manufacturers to develop Bedaquiline, making it cheaper and more accessible. BUT Johnson and Johnson filed a secondary patent in 2007 and, in many places, they were using that patent to extend their exclusivity until 2027. It’s important to note here that in some places, courts have rejected this secondary patent - saying that it doesn’t have adequate innovation. But in the countries that don’t have the power to do that, the exclusive rights remain.
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Produced by: Cory Ray, Philip DeFranco
Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks
Art Department: William Crespo
Writing/Research: Star Pralle, Philip DeFranco
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#John Green #Johnson&Johnson #vlogbrothers