Professionals For Humanity (PROFOH) and over 100 international organizations including MSF (Doctors Without Borders) Treatment Action Group, Partners in Health (PIH), are calling upon the diagnostics company

Danaher to lower the price of its GeneXpert tests for tuberculosis (TB) and other diseases to $5 each, which would still cover production costs as well as a modest profit. Now, we’re asking our members, supporters

and allies to sign a petition demanding Danaher take this simple, lifesaving action to get more people diagnosed with TB and connected to care.

TB kills over 1.5 million people each year, but TB services around the world remain perilously underfunded.

The high cost of diagnostics gobbles up limited resources that could otherwise be used for treatment and support, making it harder to get as many people as possible tested and cured. For years, our organization has been on the frontlines of the fight against TB. PROFOH is a ranking member of WHO Stop TB Partnership in Geneva, Switzerland.

At PROFOH, our mandate include the removal of barriers that keep vulnerable populations from getting the treatment they need to stay alive and healthy. A study shows that Cepheid and Danaher could be charging $5 for each of their medical tests and still make a profit, but instead, they charge up to triple and quadruple that price even in the world’s poorest countries.

The corporations continue to charge low-and middle-income countries between $15 and $20 for the same type of test that can help diagnose multiple other diseases, including drug-resistant TB, HIV, and hepatitis.

These prices are 200% to 400% higher than what it costs Cepheid and Danaher to make one test. Plus, they keep prices exorbitantly high for low- and middle-income countries, even though they are selling millions more tests year on year, which has brought costs down for them through economies of scale. And on top of tthat, they got more than $252 million in public funding, primarily from the US government, to help develop the test in the first place.

The ‘Time for $5’ Coalition is Coordinated by Access Campaign of MSF and other partners with more 100 civil society organizations working to improve access to GeneXpert instruments and tests. Since 2019, we have been calling on Cepheid and Danaher to lower the price of GeneXpert tests to $5 per test for all diseases.

Dr. Gbemuotor Kama

Executive Director

Info@profohmed.org

www.profohmed.org