Last year, my brother Hank was diagnosed with a cancer called Hodgkin's lymphoma. Although Hodgkin's disease is usually curable, with a five-year survival rate of about 90 percent with proper treatment, the experience was still frightening. My younger brother is 43 years old. He has a young child. The world needs him here. We need him here.
After four months of grueling treatment, Hank was declared in remission. The hope and expectation is that his cancer will be cured and that he will live a long life.
Now consider that, like Hodgkin's lymphoma, tuberculosis is generally curable. And it is the world's deadliest infectious disease. According to the World Health Organization, in 2022, tuberculosis will kill 1.3 million people. This is more than COVID-19, malaria, and HIV. Every week, 25,000 people die from tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that primarily attacks the lungs.
Tuberculosis is not easy to cure. The best standard treatment involves taking antibiotics daily for 4 to 9 months. But so is Hodgkin's lymphoma. In fact, my brother's cancer was much more expensive and more complex to treat than tuberculosis, yet the cost of diagnosing and treating tuberculosis is central to why the disease remains deadly.
Of the 10 million people who will contract tuberculosis this year, 3 million to 4 million will go undiagnosed and will often die before receiving accurate testing. Fortunately, the GeneXpert test created by Cepheid (a subsidiary of the conglomerate Danaher) allows him to reliably determine whether a patient has tuberculosis within two hours. The second cartridge can test for so-called XDR-TB, or extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. This form of tuberculosis is a more complex condition, but it is curable if properly diagnosed.
Testing for XDR-TB is especially important because drug-resistant tuberculosis is a major threat to global health. For every person with an undiagnosed drug-resistant strain, there are 30 simmering cases of XDR-TB waiting to boil over, said Carol D. Mitnick, a professor of global health at Harvard Medical School. he said. These GeneXpert test machines are therefore critical to saving lives now and reducing the burden of tuberculosis in the future.
There's just one problem. A research engineer in Sierra Leone once explained it to me succinctly: If I can afford it. ”
When I think about how lucky I was when my brother became ill, I think of the plight of Sierra Leone, and of the many other parts of the world that desperately need help with tuberculosis. Hank's family, friends, and community rallied around him. People brought food. They knitted a hat for him to wear during chemotherapy. His colleagues worked together to ensure that the company he founded thrived in his absence.
It was the most difficult thing I've ever gone through so I can hardly imagine what it was like for him, but when we talk every day he says how the whole experience was… You talked to me about how you reminded me of the good things humans can do and how good humans can be. I also share his belief in humanity. That's why I believe we can persuade those who work at Danaher to lower our profit margins in order to increase sales and improve our overall quality of life.
Danaher has touted its profit strategy to shareholders when it comes to selling tests for other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS. As CEO Rainer Blair said in January, “We have a razor-edge business model for mission-critical applications.” Razor companies make a small profit on the handle itself and charge exorbitant fees for replacement blades. It's also a printer/ink approach. And that's Danaher's: making GeneXpert machines relatively affordable and increasing the price of test cartridges.
Last year, Danaher and its subsidiary Cepheid pledged that they would no longer profit from the sale of standard tuberculosis cartridges in poor countries. This is a huge step forward and will give millions more people access to testing. But the companies still charge nearly $8 for a standard cartridge, which Médecins Sans Frontières estimates is a nearly 40% increase, even though they say this is “cost price.” Cepheid charges nearly $15 for each XDR-TB test cartridge, or more than his 300% higher manufacturing cost, says Médecins Sans Frontières.
Mr. Danaher should be rewarded for developing these tests, and I'm glad they were. But the company's GeneXpert device, which tests for a variety of diseases including tuberculosis (which still affects about 8,000 people a year in the U.S.) without wasting very limited resources, has significantly increased the You will get a huge profit. About the poorest people on earth.
It is also worth noting that Danaher and Cepheid received over $250 million in public funding to develop this technology, according to a 2021 study. Much of that support comes from taxpayers like you and me. Citizens have the right to expect that their contributions will be made in the greatest public interest.
Lowering the price of these tests to $5 would save hundreds of thousands of lives over the next decade. When Danaher bucked criticism last year and changed the pricing of its standard tuberculosis tests, it was a sign that the company knew what was right. Polite but enthusiastic encouragement from the public, and perhaps Danaher employees, could be very helpful as the company navigates the rest of the way.
My brother and I talk every day. I mean, I'm reminded every day how lucky I am to talk to him, laugh with him, and learn from him. Although he is my younger brother, I have long admired Hank and relied on his advice.
Cure for his cancer reflects decades of efforts to discover and improve treatments, funded by both public and private investment, and curing his cancer requires human expertise and Both technologies were needed. But of course, with Hank here with me, it was a good investment. I hope he is here with us for a long time.
How can we tell people living with tuberculosis that they are not entitled to the same conscientious care? The world's deadliest disease is treatable, and the first step toward a cure is By making TB testing available to millions of undiagnosed people at affordable prices.
