End of the Bedaquiline patent – a crucial development for moving forward affordable drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines for infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries

When Johnson & Johnson (J&J) developed the new tuberculosis (TB) drug bedaquiline (Sirturo) [[1]TB Alliance-our pipeline. Bedaquiline. https://www.tballiance.org/portfolio/compound/bedaquiline - accessed 3 April, 2023Google Scholar], it was one the few new drugs to have been conditionally approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2012 for treatment of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). It offered renewed hope to patients providing a unique opportunity to radically transform management of MDR-TB to shorter, easier-to-administer, and more patient-tolerable treatment regimens [[2]WHO consolidated guidelines on tuberculosis. Module 4: treatment - drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment, 2022 update. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240063129 - accessed 3 April, 2023Google Scholar]. Evaluation in clinical trials over the ensuing seven years showed that bedaquiline was a game-changer, demonstrating substantial improved treatment outcomes among…