[Ip-health] Thailand: GPO says will seek Efavirenz compulsory license

[robert weissman]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/29Nov2006_news13.php
*
Local version of new Aids drug planned*

*APIRADEE TREERUTKUARKUL*

Thailand is planning to produce a local version of the anti-Aids drug
Effavirenz to help thousands of HIV/Aids patients who are resistant to
the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO)'s drug GPO-vir. GPO
managing director Mongkol Jivasantikarn yesterday said the agency
planned to apply for the compulsory licensing of Effavirenz in January,
to enable Thailand to produce the drug locally.

This would help several thousand GPO-vir users who are becoming
resistant to the drug to afford the alternative Effavirenz at a much
lower cost, said Lt-Gen Mongkol.

According to the Public Health Ministry, about 5,000 GPO-vir users have
become resistant to the drug so far, so they have had to switch to
imported drugs.

HIV/Aids patients resistant to GPO-vir needed to take Effavirenz or
Kaletra, which costs a patient about 20,000 to 24,000 baht a month,
while GPO-vir users pay only 1,200 baht a month for the dose.

Lt-Gen Mongkol said the GPO-made Effavirenz would be much cheaper than
the imported drug, costing a patient only 700 baht per month.

Local production of Effavirenz is due to start in June.

The agency has been working with Siriraj Hospital's faculty of medicine
to conduct bioequivalence studies to ensure that the locally-made
Effavirenz would have similar properties to the first-line drug.

However, he said, under the compulsory licensing requirement, the GPO is
obliged to return 1% of the sales price to the US-based Bristol-Myers
Squibb, the patent holder of the Effavirenz drug.

Other anti-Aids drugs the GPO expects to produce in the next two years
include Indinavir, Saquinavir, ddI and Lopinavir, the GPO chief added.

Lopinavir is the second-line drug of Kaletra, which is still relatively
expensive and mostly used by patients experiencing resistance to GPO-vir.

GPO deputy director Pisamorn Klinsuwan added that the first batch of
400,000 capsules of a Thai version of the anti-influenza drug
oseltamivir would be produced within next January in a bid to prepare
for a possible global flu pandemic.