A two-thirds reduction in key preventive tuberculosis (TB) drug Rifampentine (Priftin®) has been announced and expected to take effect immediately.

This brings the critically important TB drug, Rifapentine (Priftin®) 150mg tablets down from €13.60 (GHS84.14) per pack of 24 tablets to €4.62 (GHS28.24), a 66 percent discount.

The decision was arrived at after the partnership between Multinational Pharmaceutical Company, Sanofi, Unitaid and the Global Fund.

It was announced on Thursday at the 50th Union World Conference on Lung Health taking place this week in Hyderabad, India at a conference convened by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union).

The discounted price will be available to the public sectors of low-income countries, lower-middle-income countries, and upper-middle-income countries with a high burden of TB and TB-HIV. The announcement comes on the back of promising Phase IIb results of the M72 TB vaccine candidate reported by pharmaceutical company GSK and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) earlier this week at the TBScience pre-conference event. Thursday’s official press conference on prevention also revealed that the NIH will launch a Phase III multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) prevention trial (Phoenix) in 12 high burden and that the final results of The Union’s TITI study point to a new model of pediatric TB prevention efforts. “If we are to end the TB emergency, we need a prevention revolution,” said José Luis Castro, Executive Director of The Union.

He continues that, “It is indeed timely that we are seeing such promising movement on all facets of prevention – vaccines, drug prices and new drugs – now we need to ensure that going forward, preventing wherever we treat becomes the new normal.”   The Union World Conference is the world’s largest gathering of clinicians, policymakers, public health managers, researchers and advocates working to end the suffering caused by lung disease, with a focus specifically on the challenges faced by low- and middle-income countries.

Some 3,500 delegates from over 80 countries are attending the event.