HUGE NEWS and what it means: This morning, @USAID, @StopTB, and @GlobalFund jointly announced that Danaher will lower the price of their standard TB test cartridge by 20% to $7.97. This isn't the 50% reduction we hoped for BUT...
@DanaherCorp is also committing to ZERO profit in their distribution of standard TB tests to impoverished communities. They will sell the cartridges at cost and bring in an "internationally accredited third-party" to assess prices and adjust them accordingly so that Danaher earns no profit from selling these cartridges. That is a huge deal. It means if Danaher's costs decline with increased volume, the price of the cartridges will further decline.
Just for some perspective, if (conservatively) 10 million cartridges are sold annually at the reduced price, this deal would save the poorest communities and those who serve them $200,000,000 over the next decade.
This is a massive win for people living with and fighting TB around the world, and it's a credit to years of activism by @MSF_access, @TAGTeam_Tweets, @PIH, and others.
There are many questions still outstanding, of course, and we hope that Danaher will take a similar course with their extensively drug resistant TB test cartridges. But I for one am very grateful to be able to celebrate today, even as the fight for universal access to treatment and diagnostics continues.
https://t.co/Oleh6ThGTB
Morning, @DanaherCorp. Still no public comment from you on the thousands of requests you've received to lower the price of GeneXpert tests, thus allowing TB patients to be treated appropriately. I really hope today is the day you publicly announce lower prices. Thanks in advance!
.@DanaherCorp has shut down their public-facing phone line. I guess they don't love hearing from the public. That's odd, because they were happy to accept over $250,000,000 of public money to develop their GeneXpert Machine.
The alternate definition of the verb, ‘tweet’, as in, ‘to make a posting on the Twitter online message service’, is in the actual dictionary. No other social media app has anything like it. Imagine disposing of that level of brand recognition because of a mid-life crisis.