Bristol-Myers Squibb has awarded nine grants worth over £3.5m to support hepatitis projects in China and India.
The grants were made through BMS’ Delivering Hope initiative, which has supported more than 40 projects in China and India since 2002, and will now focus on the most vulnerable and high-risk patient populations in both hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
John Damonti, president of the BMS Foundation and VP of corporate philanthropy at BMS, said: “Delivering Hope continues to increase its focus on hepatitis B and hepatitis B in China and India, the two countries that have the highest incidence of viral hepatitis worldwide.
In China, BMS awarded grants to the Peking University Education Foundation, Hepatitis B Foundation, Wu Jieping Medical Foundation and Inno Community Development Organisation. In India, the All India Institute of Diabetes and Research, MAMTA, United Way of Mumbai and SAMARTH will receive funding.
BMS awarded an additional grant to the World Hepatitis Alliance to develop an e-learning tool that will support patient groups to raise awareness of hepatitis treatment and prevention.
It is estimated that there are 123 millions people living with hepatitis B in China and India combined, while the figure is 60 million for hepatitis C. The problem is exacerbated in these countries as awareness of the virus is low so many patients go untreated.
Despite the continued prevalence of the infection the hepatitis market has been boosted in recent years by significant developments in treatments.
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This has been led by Gilead Sciences’ record-breaking Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), which has revolutionised hepatitis C treatment by allowing patients an interferon-free treatment regimen.
Last month, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended a further two drugs by AbbVie – Exviera (dasabuvir) and combination treatment Viekirax (ombitasvir, paritaprevir and ritonavir) – for the treatment of HCV adult patients.
There was disappointing news for BMS recently however when the FDA blocked approval for daclatasvir for in hepatitis C because the drug it was developed alongside was dropped from development by BMS.