First-ever licencing deal struck for cancer drug

Pharmaceutical giant Novartis has signed a licensing agreement increasing access to a vital leukaemia treatment, a UN-backed public health organisation said Thursday, marking the first-ever such agreement for a cancer drug.

The deal will give selected manufacturers the opportunity to develop, manufacture and supply generic versions of nilotinib, a twice-daily oral medication used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).

“Access to high-quality cancer medicines is a crucial component of the global health response to the cancer burden,” said Charles Gore, head of the Medicines Patent Pool, the United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to life-saving medicines in poorer countries.

While the remaining patent period for nilotinib was “relatively short”, he said the licencing deal set “a vital precedent that I hope other companies will follow”, Gore said in a statement.

Novartis president of global health and sustainability Lutz Hegemann said the company was “proud to be pioneering this new licensing model with MPP”.

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The drug is listed on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines for the treatment of adults and children over the age of one suffering from CML.

Zeba Aziz, a medical oncologist at Hameed Latif Hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, said nilotinib offers an alternative to people who are resistant or intolerant to imatinib, the first-line treatment for CML — about 20 percent of those who contract the disease.

“I am glad more people in (low and middle-income countries) will have access to this essential cancer medicine,” she said in the statement.

The licence includes seven middle-income countries: Egypt, Guatemala, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tunisia, where patents on the product are pending or in force, MPP said.

The Access to Oncology Medicines (ATOM) Coalition welcomed the deal.

“This is a first for cancer treatment anywhere and demonstrates that the combined efforts of the private and public sectors can pave the way to help save millions of lives,” ATOM co-chair Anil D-Cruz said in a separate statement.