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news.ViiV Healthcare, a global specialist HIV company majority owned by GSK, with Pfizer and Shionogi Limited as shareholders, confirmed a public tender agreement with the Ministry of Health in Botswana to support the implementation of a new national ‘Treat All’ programme which aims to ensure people living with HIV in the country get tested and receive treatment.
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This is the first time dolutegravir will be made available as part of a national health programme in sub-Saharan Africa since the WHO recommended dolutegravir as alternative first line treatment in HIV patients in late 2015.
This is the largest tender ever secured by ViiV Healthcare in the African sub-continent, a region particularly impacted by the HIV epidemic with nearly three quarters of the global HIV population living there.
As part of the agreement, ViiV Healthcare has committed to providing dolutegravir 50mg. The medicine would be used as a first linecore-agent to treat newly diagnosed patients tested under the programme in Botswana.
Dr Dominique Limet, Chief Executive Officer, ViiV Healthcare said: "This tender agreement is a great moment as part of our commitment to accelerating access to our treatments in Africa. It will allow people living with HIV in Botswana to have access to dolutegravir as part of a national test and treat initiative, locally referred to as the ‘Treat All’ programme. It is even more of an achievement for us as it happens less than three years after the product was first approved and less than one year after it was included in the WHO guidelines."
The public tender agreement has resulted from positive negotiations with the Botswana Government and is the latest project in a series of initiatives undertaken by ViiV Healthcare to support the response to the HIV epidemic across Africa. It follows two other recent announcements, including the company’s involvement in a new national programme launched in Lesotho to double the number of children at risk of HIV in care and on treatment in the country within three years.
Most recently, ViiV Healthcare also announced the extension of its licence agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool for the adult formulation of dolutegravir to include all lower middle-income countries, a number of which are on the African continent.
About dolutegravir
Dolutegravir (Tivicay) is an integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI) for use in combination with other antiretroviral agents for the treatment of HIV. Integrase inhibitors block HIV replication by preventing the viral DNA from integrating into the genetic material of human immune cells (T-cells). This step is essential in the HIV replication cycle and is also responsible for establishing chronic infection. Tivicay is approved in over 90 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and Latin America.
Tivicay is a registered trademark of the ViiV Healthcare group of companies.