Durban — An investigation into US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has been welcomed by the Health Justice Initiative (HJI).
The HJI said the probe was unprecedented and welcomed. Last week South Africa’s Competition Commission confirmed that it is investigating J&J for excessive pricing of a tuberculosis (TB) medicine, bedaquiline.
Bedaquiline is used with at least three other medications to treat multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis.
In a statement, Siyabulela Makunga, spokesperson for the Competition Commission said the commissioner, in terms of section 49B(1) of the Competition Act 89 of 1998, as amended, initiated a complaint against J&J) and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
Makunga said the initiation was based on information in the commission’s possession that gave rise to a reasonable concern that the respondents may have engaged in exclusionary practices and excessive pricing in the provision of bedaquiline (trading as sirturo).
“This conduct may be in possible contravention of sections 8(1)(c) and 8(1)(a) of the act. The matter is currently under investigation,” said Makunga.
HJI director Fatima Hassan said this was welcomed. She said it was time the country stood up to the bullying of multinational pharmaceutical companies.
Speaking to eNCA, Candice Sehoma from Doctors without Borders, said the country was paying too much for bedaquiline. She said we were paying about R5 500, while other countries were paying half this and this was due to patent monopoly.
“J&J is the sole producer of this drug and they have patented this drug until 2027, which means we won’t have any generics or any generic company coming to the market to supply SA,” said Sehoma.
Furthermore, she said the country was solely dependent on J&J and that was why the company was charging SA so much when compared with other countries.
“South Africa also played a role in developing bedaquiline to improve the efficacy of this drug through clinical trials and we believe that there should be some kind of benefit that we are able to gain from our contribution,” she said.
Sehoma said the drug was better than the previous TB medicine which had toxic side-effects. She said previously patients had to take TB treatment for 20 months but with this drug it was only six months.
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