Medicines Patent Pool signed agreement with Bristol-Myers to lower Hepatitis C in 112 Developing Countries

United Nations-backed the Medicines Patent Pool signed a deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co to bring down the price of Hepatitis C drug in 112 developing countries.

According to Reuters, Medicines Patent announced Monday that Daklinza, the generic versions of Bristol-Myers' Hepatitis C drug, would be available to countries where almost two-thirds of all the people affected live.

The deal lets drug makers all over the world manufacture a generic version of Daklinza, which is chemically known as daclatasvir.

Bristol-Myers has treated some 50,000 Japanese patients using a mix of daclatasvir and asunaprevir, and is now planning to expand in China, said spokesman Robert Perry.

"The MPP royalty-free agreement is one key element of Bristol-Myers Squibb's broad plan to support global access to Daklinza," Perry said in a report by Bloomberg. "There were a number of factors that we considered when determining which countries to include in the licensing territory, including economic development, burden of disease and government health systems' resources for addressing treatment and care."

The Medicines Patent Pool is dedicated in lowering the price of HIV drugs. The two companies also entered an agreement earlier for a generic version of the Reyataz, which is an HIV treatment drug.

Bristol-Myers' Daklinza is included in the essential medicines list of the World Health Organization, which estimates that about 150 million people suffer the Hepatitis C from all over the world, killing half a million a year.

Swiss Info reported that the price of hepatitis C in the U.S., has been hugely criticized by politicians and its consumers. The IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics projects that the drugs will cost $48 billion by 2020. In the U.S., the 12-week regimen for Daklinza is $63,000, which is $750 a day.

Besides Daklinza, another drug that could treat the disease is Gilead Sciences' Sovaldi, which costs $1,000 in the United States.