18 March 2015. KEI Europe, KEI, and Essential Inventions submitted proposals for global voluntary licences for all patents necessary for hepatitis C virus (HCV) medicines to five drug companies — AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead, Janssen, and Merck. The proposed licences would permit the manufacture, import, export and sale of generic HCV medicines in every country in the world. Significantly, the proposal puts forth an innovative royalty structure that accounts for income disparity, HCV incidence rate, and the differing health statuses of HCV patients in countries around the world, and provides a detailed annex demonstrating the royalties that companies would stand to earn in various specific countries for treating patients at different stages of infection.
KEI Europe submitted the following requests for licences on HCV Treatments: