[Ip-health] Chicago Tribune: Thailand scolded over not honoring patents

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070430abbott,0,688557.story?
coll=chi-business-hed

Thailand scolded over not honoring patents

By Bruce Japsen
Tribune staff reporter

April 30, 2007, 1:11 PM CDT

The Bush administration Monday scolded Thailand for its "weakening of
respect for patents" after the country in that last year took steps to
override patents on several drugs, including Abbott Laboratories' AIDS
pill Kaletra.

In an annual report that documents shortfalls in how U.S. trading
partners protect intellectual property, the U.S. Trade Representative
elevated Thailand to the "priority watch list" in 2007. The decision
represents "a concern that the past year has been characterized by an
overall deterioration in the protection and enforcement" of
intellectual property.

The 52-page report names 43 countries in all that are being monitored
with 10 countries on the most serious, "priority watch list."
"Countries on the priority watch list do not provide adequate level of
(intellectual priority rights) protection or enforcement, or market
access for persons relying on intellectual property protection," the
so-called "special 20 report" said of the 10 priority watch list
countries, that include China and Russia.

The trade representative said the Thai government in late 2006 and
early 2007 announced decisions to issue several "compulsory licenses
for several patented pharmaceutical products."

In Abbott's case, the North Chicago-based drug giant has been embroiled
in a dispute with Thai officials over pricing of the AIDS drug Kaletra
and Thailand's efforts to make generic copies of the medicine that
effectively would break Abbott's patent protection. Thailand earlier
this year said that it could not afford the price Abbott charges for
Kaletra, and planned to use a provision of international trade law that
would have allowed it to skirt Kaletra's patent protection and choose
other companies to copy the drug. That move represented a significant
challenge to Abbott's patent protections.

Abbott countered by announcing that it would not register any newly
developed drugs in Thailand, depriving that country of a new form of
Kaletra that -- in contrast to the current form -- does not require
refrigeration.

AIDS activists, who protested the company just last week, have
condemned Abbott's action as "blackmail," suggesting that withholding
the Kaletra that does not require refrigeration is putting patients'
health at risk. Given Thailand's hot climate and underdeveloped
health-care infrastructure, many people do not have access to Abbott's
AIDS drugs, the activists charge.

bjapsen@tribune.com

---------------------------------
Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
mobile +41 76 508 0997
thiru@keionline.org