The Hindu published yet another story in today’s edition on the issue of access to the new TB drugs like bedaquiline and delaminid. We’ve been tracking The Hindu’s coverage of this issue on the blog over here, here and here. Unlike the earlier reportage, The Hindu has finally acknowledged some of the issues that we have flagged relating to safety and efficacy of both drugs, given pending clinical trials. Today’s report notes that both drugs “are yet to pass large-scale…

Co-authored with Balaji Subramanian, 5th Year student NALSAR University of Law Subsequent to our previous post, we got a copy of some of the correspondence between Janssen and the Ministry of Health under the RTI Act. We were under the impression that our request for the information was transferred to the CDSCO which then disposed the application without giving us the requisite information. However, it appears that the application was transferred back to the Central TB Division, which processed the…

Co-authored with Balaji Subramanian, 5th year student, NALSAR University of Law Prologue Last Sunday, The Hindu ran a piece on its front page alleging that  the government was not even considering the option of issuing compulsory licenses for a newly patented drug called bedaquiline, despite access to the drug being restricted to less than 1,000 patients. Bedaquiline, which is currently the most promising drug candidate to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) was developed and patented by Janssen and The Hindu…