[Ip-health] Thailand: Plans to Import Generic Aluvia

[robert weissman]

Bangkok Post
April 19, 2007
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/19Apr2007_news11.php

Govt seeking new generic imports

APIRADEE TREERUTKUARKUL

Thailand wants to import a generic version of the anti-Aids drug Aluvia,
in tablet form, from makers in India. The move comes after the patent
holder, Abbott, withdrew its introduction of the medicine to the country
after the government announced compulsory licensing.

A source said the Public Health Ministry was looking for generic drug
producers of the new tablet form of the protease inhibitor
lopinavir/ritonavir in India. Thus would offer HIV-positive people with
resistance to first-line drugs such as the locally-made GPO-VIR access
to a superior regimen of the second-line Aids drug.

The decision was made after the US-based company opposed the
government's decision to go for compulsory licensing and threatened to
withhold the introduction of new drugs in Thailand, including Aluvia
which is an improved version of Kaletra, the source said.

It was possible that the government would receive cooperation from
international organisations, including the Clinton Foundation, to help
negotiate the price with the generic drug makers in order to ensure that
the price of Aids drugs would be affordable for Thai people living with
HIV/Aids, the source said.

The objective of the Clinton Foundation HIV/Aids Initiative (Chai) is to
make treatment for HIV/Aids more affordable and to implement large-scale
integrated care, treatment and prevention programmes.

Virat Poorahong, head of the Thai Network of People Living with
HIV/Aids, said the generic version of Aluvia costs about 4,000 baht per
month. However, this improved version of Kaletra could be reduced to
below 2,000 baht to compete with the Kaletra price offered by Abbott.

Abbott has decided to lower the price of Kaletra to 3,488.20 baht in
Thailand. However, it is unclear whether the ministry will accept the
offer or proceed with its plan to import the generic version from India
under the compulsory licensing.

HIV-positive Thais with resistance to first-line drugs spend up to
11,850 baht per month to buy such medicine.

Last year, Abbott announced that it would sell Aluvia at a price of
$2,200 (71,000 baht) a year in developing and middle-income countries
including Thailand.

However, the drug firm decided last month to withdraw its introduction
of the medicine and other new drugs in Thailand in opposition to the
government's compulsory licensing decision, which allows the state to
override drug patents to import or produce cheaper versions of the
medicine for emergency use.

Mr Virat said he and former Bangkok senator and health activist Jon
Ungphakorn were also invited by a group of shareholders in Abbott
Laboratories to attend the annual stockholders meeting in Chicago on
April 27 and address the necessity of adopting compulsory licencing to
give Thai people access to affordable medicine.

Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla and his special adviser Suwit
Wibulpolprasert will also be going to Washington to defend the decision
to use compulsory licencing. They say it does not contradict the World
Trade Organisation's agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property