GENEVA – Unitaid welcomes a new license agreement between the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and AbbVie that will increase access a WHO-recommended treatment for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) at affordable prices.

The deal will allow manufacturers in 99 countries to develop and sell generic versions containing glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (G/P). This oral, eight-week regimen has cure rates of 98 percent across all six genotypes of the virus in the patients for whom it is indicated.

“The MPP’s work is an excellent example of how Unitaid’s grants accelerate faster, more effective and more affordable ways to respond to public health challenges such as HCV,” said Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Mármora. Of the 71 million people with chronic HCV, only 20 percent know they have the disease and only 7 percent of people with chronic HCV infection are treated.

Unitaid is the founder and sole funder of the MPP, and it is also one of the few international funders of HCV programs globally. So far, it has invested US $60 million to lay the foundations of a global response to the epidemic.

Please click on the following link to read MPP’s news release.