In rare move, Colombia issues compulsory license for HIV medicine in effort to expand access

The Colom­bian gov­ern­ment on Wednes­day is­sued a com­pul­so­ry li­cense for a com­mon­ly used drug to treat HIV, the first time the gov­ern­ment there has stepped in to man­u­fac­ture a drug with­out the drug­mak­er’s per­mis­sion.

The com­pul­so­ry li­cense was is­sued for do­lute­gravir, which is man­u­fac­tured by Vi­iV Health­care, an HIV-fo­cused drug com­pa­ny op­er­at­ed by GSK. The li­cense gives Colom­bia’s min­istry of health the au­thor­i­ty to man­u­fac­ture the drug un­der a sys­tem es­tab­lished by a World Trade Or­ga­ni­za­tion agree­ment.

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