The Treatment Action Group had its origins in the AIDS activist organization,
ACT UP New York. In January 1992, members of the Treatment and Data Committee of ACT UP left the parent group to create a non-profit organization focused on accelerating treatment research. During the early 1990s, TAG members, including
Mark Harrington and
Spencer Cox, advocated with government scientists, drug company researchers, and
U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials to speed the development of new HIV therapies. The group produced an influential policy report on government investment in basic science, which recommended increasing funding to the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and reorganizing the national AIDS research effort. Following approval of several effective
antiretroviral drugs in 1995, Treatment Action Group pressed government and industry to conduct research to understand the long-term effects of the new drugs. In 2002, TAG began raising awareness of the impact that
tuberculosis (TB) was having on people with HIV in the developing world. In 2007, the organization received a $4.7 million grant from the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to foster increased international advocacy on TB/HIV research and treatment. In 2020,
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) stated that that price
Cepheid Inc charged for its Xpert Xpress tests was not affordable in countries where people live on less than two dollars a day. They estimated that the cost to Cepheid of providing the test is as low as US$3, and called the offered US$19.80, price
profiteering, asking that Cepheid make a more moderate profit by selling the tests for US$5 each. TAG seconded this request, saying that the development of the tests, and their purchase and global deployment, has been done with public funds, while the owners of Cepheid made profits of $3 billion in 2019. They requested the same price reduction for all the tests using the same technique, including
COVID-19,
HIV, TB, and
hepatitis C, as the costs are similar regardless of the disease (the tests convert the
RNA of the
RNA virus into DNA, then tests for the presence of some DNA sequences). This request started the "Time for $5" campaign. On June 20, 2024, MSF announced its Access To Medicines campaign is shutting down. TAG criticized the move by MSF in an open letter by
Mark Harrington. The open letter declares: "The shuttering of the Access Campaign will have an extremely negative effect on the very populations whom MSF stands in solidarity.... We urge you to reverse the decision to close down the Access Campaign and engage with our communities to ensure continued collaboration." ==Mission statement==