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Licences in the Pool

Negotiating for public-health driven licences with patent holders is the core work of the Medicines Patent Pool. Below is a list of the current licences in the Pool. Signed sub-licensing agreements are linked where applicable.

ViiV Healthcare [GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Shionogi]

Collaboration to increase availability of HIV medicines for children. Licences covering: paediatric abacavir (ABC).

The Medicines Patent Pool announced on 27 February 2013 a collaboration with ViiV Healthcare

The collaboration consists of a Memorandum of Understanding. The Memorandum of Understanding sets out commitments between MPP and ViiV Healthcare to collaborate in several areas with the ultimate goal of making more quality and affordable medicines for children available. These areas include: a commitment from ViiV Healthcare to licence its pipeline products for paediatric use in 118 countries once they are approved by drug regulatory authorities; provide technology transfer to aid in generic manufacture; access to data on medicines quality and efficacy; and planned partnerships with third-party stakeholders to help bring to market as-yet undeveloped new treatments, and to speed the availability of those treatments in developing countries. The MOU also contains a legally-binding licence on paediatric abacavir for use in the 118 countries where most children with HIV live.

The full, signed texts of the memorandum of understanding and the licence agreement are available below:


Gilead Sciences

Licences covering: tenofovir (TDF), emtricitabine (FTC), cobicistat (COBI), elvitegravir (EVG) and the Quad [a combination of TDF, FTC, COBI, and EVG].

The Medicines Patent Pool signed a licence agreement with Gilead Sciences in July 2011. It was the first agreement the Pool has made with a pharmaceutical company patent holder.

The licences are in three documents, available below. The first is the primary licensing agreement signed by the Pool and Gilead. This agreement dictates that the Pool use the following two forms in its sub-licensing to generic companies. The first sub-licence document is a form “amended and restated” for existing Gilead sublicensees. The second is a form sub-licence agreement for new sublicensees.

Since its signing, the agreement has been amended four times: