Johnson and Johnson 2006 Annual Report Download - page 21

developing this trial. The GRACE study and our collabora-
tion with the International Partnership for Microbicides on
TMC120 refl ect our deep commitment to address HIV
treatment and prevention options for women and girls.”
BETTER ACCESS FOR DEVELOPING NAT I O N S Upon receiving
the earliest approval of PREZISTA™, the company launched
the Tibotec Global Access program. Under this initiative,
and because of the unique situation created by an infectious
disease that is now a global pandemic, Tibotec will make its
antiretrovirals available at reduced prices on a sustainable
basis to people in need in more than 100 countries. The
program includes early fi ling registration of PREZISTA™ in
41 countries, which were selected on the basis of several
factors, including their incidence and prevalence of HIV/AIDS,
the maturity of their HIV treatment programs and the pres-
ence of international HIV programs. Dossiers have already
been submitted in 12 of these 41 countries, including those
with a high HIV burden such as Brazil, China, India, South
Africa, Thailand and Ukraine. For many of the least developed
countries in the world—especially sub-Saharan African
nations—the company is actively pursuing agreements for
licensing with generic manufacturers.
“We recognize the unparalleled challenges posed by the
AIDS epidemic and our responsibility to collaborate in the
international response to this pandemic, particularly by
providing access to medicines,” says McHugh. “At Tibotec and
Virco, we believe that people who need our products should
have ready access to them. Finding creative ways to ensure this
access is a core part of our business.”
MORE EPIDEMICS IN THEIR SIGHTS The research and
development teams at Tibotec and Virco have even more
than HIV within their sights.
TMC207, the fi rst novel anti-TB compound in 40 years,
was discovered at the Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical
Research & Development, LLC laboratories in Beerse, Belgium,
and is now being developed at Tibotec. Tibotec also recently
obtained co-development and marketing rights in selected
territories from Vertex Pharmaceuticals to VX-950,
a promising oral inhibitor of hepatitis C virus (HCV) protease.
The drug, now called Telaprevir, is in early development.
In addition, Tibotec has internal preclinical HCV drug
discovery programs and is advancing an HCV protease inhib-
itor into clinical studies in collaboration with Medivir AB.
“In years to come,” says Werner Verbiest, General Manager,
Virco BVBA, “our virology franchise will continue to explore
the use of biomarkers for diagnostic and drug discovery
purposes, seeking increasingly more personalized and eff ective
treatments. But no matter what we do, we’ll keep one thing at
the forefront of our work:
“Somewhere, patients are waiting.”
H U M A N S V S . M I C R O B E S
“All our research leads back to Africa in the early 1980s,”
says Jens Van Roey, M.D., Director of Global Clinical
Development at Tibotec. “At that time, Paul Stoffels and
I were working side by side as clinical caregivers and
medical researchers in Zaire [now Congo], one of the
poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We began to
notice signs of nothing less than a plague-to-come—
a vast, yet-to-be-named microbial scourge, of which
Central Africa was undoubtedly an evolving epicenter.”
In the ensuing years, countries such as Uganda
have suffered terrible losses from HIV/AIDS, says
Van Roey: “More than 1 million adult Ugandans have
been lost to the epidemic. They’ve left behind nearly
2 million orphans. The disease invades every aspect
of life—work, home and community.”
Van Roey serves as liaison for a new employee-
initiated project, begun in 2005, to provide support to the village of Mulanda, near
Uganda’s eastern border with Kenya. In 2006, the project focused its efforts on providing
a sustainable supply of fresh, clear water to the village: “We aim to reduce morbidity and
mortality arising from poor-quality water. Many Mulandan children walk for hours every
day to carry water from distant sources to their sick parents and other adults back in the
village. Unfortunately, much of this water is
contaminated by microorganisms, even cholera.”
The Tibotec and Virco employee initiative is a
support to a larger volunteer project that provides
support services to Mulanda, including home-based
care and counseling for HIV/AIDS patients. At the
Tibotec and Virco offi ces in Mechelen, Belgium, and
Yardley, Pa., the clean-water project has taken on a life
of its own. Employees have initiated fundraising efforts
that have included car washes; a photographic contest
with calendar production; sponsored triathlons and
other athletic events; and sales of such items as water
buckets, T-shirts and items contributed by individual
employees, including homegrown fruits and vegetables,
apple juice and homemade Belgian waffl es.
“I cannot overemphasize that our volunteerism isn’t
one-sided charity, but a valuable exchange,”
Van Roey says. “It’s a two-way street—a constant
dialogue with people who have much to teach us about
how to live in dignity and solidarity, with a broader
sense of family, amid the unrelenting ravages of disease.
Employees are also encouraged to visit Mulanda, and a
fi rst employee visited the village last fall.
“Once our employee volunteers see with their
own eyes what it’s like to live with HIV in Africa,
their professional dedication instinctively redoubles. And they especially become aware
of how critical it is, in my opinion, to become as involved as possible at the earliest
stages of the HIV/AIDS process. It helps to understand that the HIV pandemic is
more of a socioeconomic than a medical problem and that more is needed than just
drugs alone.”
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Employee Volunteers
Upgrade Ugandan
Village’s Water
Jens Van Roey, M.D., and his Tibotec and Virco
colleagues in Mechelen, Belgium, are helping
to provide a Ugandan village with a fresh water
supply so that children need not walk hours
each day to collect water.