[Ip-health] Thai Official: Compulsory Licensing Is Working

[Judit Rius Sanjuan]

Thai Official: Compulsory Licensing Is Working
May 9th, 2008 By Ed Silverman
http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/05/thai-official-compulsory-licensing-is-work=
ing/

Access to some HIV drugs is increasing in Thailand because of the
country=92s decision to issue compulsory licenses for certain meds,
according to Winai Sawasdiworn, deputy secretary-general of the
National Health Security Office, The Bangkok Post reports.

You may recall that, early last year, the Thai government issued a
compulsory license to make a lower-cost version of Abbott=92s Kaletra
AIDS drug. The drugmaker later offered to sell an updated version
called Aluvia at a reduced price, but only if Thailand agreed not to
allow generics to be sold. But talks failed and Thailand last fall
allowed India=92s Matrix Laboratories to begin sales.

According to Winai, the first batch of generic Kaletra was delivered
to state hospitals three month ago, and a shipment of generic
Efavirenz, a Merck HIV drug for which a compulsory license was also
issued, has been imported from India as well, according to the Post.
His remarks were made in response to criticism from HIV advocates who
charge Thailand has been slow to distribute the drugs.



http://www.bangkokpost.com/080508_News/08May2008_news13.php
COMPULSORY LICENSING
Aids drugs now available
APIRADEE TREERUTKUARKUL

Second-line generic Aids drugs have already reached most HIV-positive
patients as a direct result of the compulsory licensing (CL) policy,
the National Health Security Office (NHSO) says. Delivery of the first
batch of the generic version of the drug Kaletra, worth 21 million
baht, to state hospitals throughout the country began in February,
NHSO deputy secretary-general, Winai Sawasdiworn, said yesterday.

Speaking after a meeting with a sub-panel overseeing the Aids issue,
he also said 153,776 bottles of another Aids drug, Efavirenz, which
also comes in tablet form, had been imported from India, beginning in
October last year.

As a result, patients listed for treatment with second-line drugs
under the universal healthcare scheme could access both medications,
he said.

He was responding to recent criticism from a group of HIV-positive
homosexual men in Chiang Mai that the state had been sluggish in
distributing the anti-viral medicines.

They wondered whether enough of the pills were being imported to meet
the needs of all patients under the policy.

In the North, a total of 4,155 HIV-positive people who have developed
resistance to the locally-made first-line drug GPO-VIR have so far
received the second-line drugs, while 4,183 others are still waiting
for them.

The previous government announced the introduction of CL to bypass the
patented versions of both Aids medications in January 2007, saying the
government could not afford the costly drugs to treat an estimated
half a million people living with the fatal disease.

An estimated 100,000 HIV-positive people are dependent for survival on
anti-Aids drugs, according to the Disease Control Department.

Of these, 12% are expected to develop resistance to first-line Aids
drugs.

Wirat Poorahong, leader of the Network of People Living with HIV/Aids
and a member of the NHSO sub-panel, said he has proposed the agency
seek a bigger budget to increase the number of medical staff under the
programme.

There are only 300 doctors authorised to change the drug regimen of an
Aids patient and only 27 blood screening centres which can check for
HIV.


Judit Rius Sanjuan
Attorney at Knowledge Ecology International
www.keionline.org / www.cptech.org
Phone: +1.202.332.2670, x18
Email: judit.rius@keionline.org