STAT Plus: AbbVie waives all worldwide restrictions on making generic copies of its Kaletra HIV pill
In an unexpected development, AbbVie (ABBV) is waiving restrictions on licenses held by a nonprofit for its Kaletra HIV pill so that other companies can supply the medicine anywhere in the world. As part of the decision, the drug maker will no longer enforce patent rights relating to adults or children.
Notably, the move by AbbVie came after the Israeli government last week approved a license to purchase a generic copy of Kaletra after speculation rose that the pill could be used to combat the novel coronavirus, even though a paper published a few days earlier in the New England Journal of Medicine raised doubts about its effectiveness to do so.
