[Ip-health] Thailand issues more compulsory drugs licences / Reuters / 25.01.07

[James Love]

New CLs in Thialand for generic version of Kaletra and Plavix.   We
will have our own statement out shortly. Jamie

Thailand issues more compulsory drugs licences / Reuters / 25.01.07

By Nopporn Wong-Anan

BANGKOK, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Thailand's army-installed government has
issued compulsory licences for cheap versions of a heart disease and
an AIDS drug, the health minister said on Thursday, a move likely to
enrage global pharmaceutical giants.

"The laws have been signed and they are now effective," Health
Minister Mongkol na Songkhla told Reuters.

Mongkol said the drugs were for treatment of HIV-AIDS and heart
disease, but declined to confirm newspaper reports they were Abbott's
<ABT.N> Kaletra, and Plavix, a blockbuster anti-clotting agent sold
by Sanofi-Aventis <SNY.N><SASY.PA> and Bristol-Myers Squibb <BMY.N>.

He cited the ballooning costs of treatment as the reason for the
move. "We have to do this because we have so many patients to treat
with so little budget. We can't watch our people die and their
patents have been here for so long," Mongkol said.

In November, two months after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was
ousted in a military coup, the interim government stunned drugs
companies by issuing its first compulsory licence, to make a generic
version of Efavirenz, an anti-retroviral drug.

The decision drew a swift riposte from U.S. drug maker and patent
holder Merck & Co Inc <MRK.N>. By contrast, AIDS activists applauded
Bangkok for taking a bold stance.

The widening of the compulsory licences is the latest blow to foreign
investors who are still reeling from the capital controls imposed in
December to stem a rise in the baht <THB=> and a proposed tightening
of laws governing overseas firms in Thailand.

"It's very, very worrying when companies' intellectual property
rights are not supported within a country," said Judy Benn, executive
director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand.

Under World Trade Organisation rules, a government is allowed to
declare a "national emergency" and produce a patented drug without
the permission of a foreign patent owner.

The drug industry association in Thailand said on Wednesday it had
write to Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont the previous day urging the
government not to introduce compulsory licences in addition to the
one covering

Efavirenz.

However, Mongkol brushed aside entreaties from Sanofi-Aventis bosses
on Wednesday not to impose the licences and accused the U.S. and
European drugs companies of making excessive profits. "They are
reaping colossal benefit from us," he said.

Instead, Thailand would buy copycat versions of the drugs from
companies in China or India for as little as 10 percent of their
original price, he said.

Plavix is Bristol-Myers Squibb's biggest-selling medicine, with
annual sales of $6 billion before a copycat Canadian-manufactured
version briefly hit the market in August.

Paul Cawthorne, head of Doctors Without Borders in Thailand, said
Bangkok was spending 11,580 baht ($330) per patient per month for
Kaletra and could cut its bill by two thirds if it switched to a
generic manufacturer.

"That's a perfectly legal method for them to ensure access to
essential drugs for Thai people," he said. (Additional reporting by
Ed Cropley)


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James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks."  Bill Walton"