[Ip-health] Letter to the Editor (Wall Street Journal): Thailand's Compulsory Drug Licensing

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

This letter to the Wall Street Journal is from:

Songphol Sukchan
Director of Press Division
Department of Information
Bangkok, Thailand


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Thailand's Compulsory Drug Licensing
May 16, 2007; Page A19

Your May 7 editorial "Thai Flu Moves South1" requires that facts be set
straight about Thailand's decision to use compulsory licensing on three
life-saving drugs.

First, the use of compulsory licensing is permissible under the World
Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPs) Agreement. The consistency of Thailand's decision with
WTO rules has not been disputed, including by the U.S. Trade
Representative. And while this was the first time Thailand used such a
measure, we were not the first to do so.

Second, the decision was not made lightly. We recognize the importance
of intellectual property protection to maintain incentives for
innovation, as well as the need to balance this with access to
medicines to safeguard public health. With the lives of more than
500,000 people living with HIV/AIDS and 300,000 patients with coronary
problems at stake, the government could not afford to stand by and
watch. Preserving and improving human life and ensuring people have
access to health-care products are causes we trust are shared by
leading pharmaceutical companies as part of their corporate social
responsibility.

Third, public health is a top priority of the government. The
government strives to provide universal access to health care for all
Thais. For many years, the budget for health and health care ranked
number two, just after education. It has increased nominally and
proportionally from 4% of the total national budget in the 1980s to
more than 11% in 2007. Unfortunately, this increase cannot keep pace
with the prices of certain life-saving drugs. The budget for
anti-retroviral drugs alone increased to more than $100 million in
2007, from around $17 million in 2004. While continuing vigorously to
promote good health practices and HIV prevention, the government must
also improve access to treatment without jeopardizing the overall
balance in the allocation of budget resources for other development
purposes.

Fourth, the Public Health Ministry's announcements on compulsory
licensing are for public, noncommercial use only. This means the
generic version of the medicines manufactured or imported under
compulsory licensing will cover patients under the government's
health-care programs. Some 20% of Thais can afford to pay out of their
own pockets, and more than two million foreign patients will continue
to pay market prices for the original patented products.

Fifth, Thailand is a developing country facing the challenge of a wide
gap in income and wealth distribution. The costs of drugs like Kaletra,
a second-line anti-retroviral drug, which had cost around $2,200
annually per patient before dropping to $1,000 in April, are immense
for a country whose average GDP per capita was $3,179 in 2006 and where
the poorest 20% of the population owns less than 5% of national income,
while the richest 20% own more than 50% of the national wealth. Many
patients remain barely able to afford treatment without government
support. Out of the more than 10,000 patients who require second-line
treatment like Kaletra, less than 15% have access to the drugs. Out of
the 300,000 patients with coronary problems, less than 10% have access
to Clopidogrel, also known as Plavix.

Sixth, it had taken the Thai Ministry of Public Health more than two
years, including discussions with pharmaceutical companies, before it
made its final decision. After the compulsory licenses were announced,
the Public Health Ministry still maintained dialogue with all
stakeholders to find mutually acceptable solutions.

Seventh, of the three compulsory licenses announced, only one has been
implemented. In January 2007, a deal was signed between the Government
Pharmaceutical Organization and an Indian drug firm to import 66,000
bottles of generic Efavirenz. The first batch has already arrived and
reduced prices by more than half, allowing an additional 20,000 AIDS
patients under the government's health-care programs to acquire the
medicine.

Eighth, compulsory licensing is neither linked to the current political
situation in Thailand nor connected to the country's other economic or
financial measures announced or implemented recently. Compulsory
licensing is used to protect public health and save lives. Such matters
should not be politicized.

Songphol Sukchan
Director of Press Division
Department of Information
Bangkok, Thailand
   	URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117926703442404014.html


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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