[Ip-health] Pharmalot: Thailand Minister To Review Compulsory Licensing

[Malini Aisola]

Thailand Minister To Review Compulsory Licensing

http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/02/thailand-minister-to-review-compulsory-lic=
ensing/

Ed Silverman
7 Feb 2008

There=92s a new health minister in Bangkok, Chaiya Sasomsab, and he vows
to review the ministry=92s announcement to issue compulsory licences for
four cancer meds. His predecessor, Mongkol na Songkhla, had just
approved the licenses to override the patents on the drugs last month.
But Chaiya tells The Bangkok Post that he wants to review whether it was
the right decision to break patent on the drugs - the Femara breast
cancer drug sold by Novartis, the Taxotere breast and lung cancer med
made by Sanofi-Aventis, and Roche=92s Tarceva lung cancer drug.

Mongkol caused an international uproar with his decision to advocate
compulsory licensing in order to boost access to costly meds under
patents. But the policy has advantages and disadvantages, says Chaiya.
Decisionmakers have to weigh patients=92 access to medication and patent
violation problems, he tells the paper. His remarks come amid reports
that PhRMA is lobbying Washington to take tough action against the
country for its decision to break patents. The US Trade Rep last year
placed Thailand on its Priority Watch list.

On cancer drugs, he wanted to see whether the number of cancer patients
in need of those four drugs was high enough to necessitate compulsory
licensing, and whether those patients had any difficulty accessing the
four drugs. And he plans tol announce his policy to executives of the
Public Health Ministry today.