Following the “Time for $5” campaign, MSF delivers 206,937 signatures to Danaher demanding a $5 price for its medical tests.
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US test maker Cepheid and parent corporation Danaher have ignored global calls for price reductions and have broken their promise from one year ago to be transparent about what it costs to make their medical tests
Today, the international medical humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), alongside other global health activists, health care implementers and civil society organisations in the ‘Time for $5’ coalition*, went to hand deliver a petition signed by 206,937 people from 194 countries to US corporation Danaher at its global headquarters in Washington, DC. Danaher is the parent corporation of US medical test maker Cepheid, and the petition demands Danaher and Cepheid drop the price to US$5 for all their ‘GeneXpert’ medical tests sold in low- and middle-income countries for diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), HIV, hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and Ebola. Accompanying the petition was an open letter asking for the corporations to respond to the demands and concerns raised in the petition by 25 October 2024.
Testing is essential. It’s the first step to diagnosing someone who is sick, getting them on the treatment they need, and preventing further spread of infectious diseases. Danaher’s GeneXpert medical test is critical for diagnosing diseases at the ‘point of care,’ meaning close to where people live and where there is often no laboratory.
“Danaher and Cepheid, it’s time for you to listen to the more than 200,000 people around the world demanding immediate access to affordable lifesaving medical tests for people in low- and middle-income countries,” said Mihir Mankad, director of global health advocacy and policy at MSF USA.
“Our research shows that Danaher and Cepheid could charge $5 per test and still make a reasonable profit, so it’s inexcusable that they are still charging more than triple that price in even the poorest countries for most of the tests they produce.”
MSF published research in 2019 estimating that each GeneXpert test produced by Cepheid could be sold at a profit for $5 at the sales volumes that Cepheid and Danaher reached long ago. In response to pressure mounted by the ‘Time for $5’ coalition and TB activists in September 2023, Danaher announced it would lower the price of the primary test used to diagnose TB from $10 to $8, which was an important first step. According to the Global Fund, this price reduction is expected to result in annual savings of $32 million, enabling the purchase of an additional 3.6 million tests every year. This means that many more people with TB will receive timely diagnosis and treatment, and ultimately more lives will be saved.
However, Cepheid and Danaher intend to continue to charge between $15 and $20 for the same type of test used to diagnose extensively drug-resistant TB ($15), HIV ($15), hepatitis ($15), STIs ($16-$19) and Ebola ($20). These prices are 200% to 400% higher than the $5 it’s estimated to cost Cepheid and Danaher to make one test and still be able to sell it at a profit. This is especially egregious considering that Danaher and Cepheid benefitted from $252 million in public funding to develop the technology.
In September 2023, Danaher also committed to an annual third-party assessment of what it costs them to make GeneXpert tests – an important opportunity to demonstrate it was not heavily marking up its prices. However, over one year has passed since that promise, and no information has been made available by the corporation about how the audit will be conducted and who will be allowed to see the results.
“It’s been over a year since Danaher committed to coming clean about what it costs them to make the GeneXpert tests, but all we have so far is deafening silence from the corporation,” said Stijn Deborggraeve, diagnostics advisor for the MSF Access Campaign.
“This silence comes even after we published recommendations for how Danaher can ensure the audit is rigorous and transparent. And now, the people who need these tests around the world cannot wait any longer: Danaher must immediately make public the information about its planned audit and ensure affordable access to their lifesaving tests.”
MSF purchases more than $2 million worth of GeneXpert tests each year for use in its medical programmes in around 70 countries.
*The ‘Time for $5’ coalition is comprised of 150 health care implementers and civil society organisations globally, including MSF, Partners in Health and Treatment Action Group.