Cheaper generic drugs will help ease health crisis

MEDICAL CARE
Cheaper generic drugs will help ease health crisis

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Breaking patents will give affordable treatment to HIV and heart patients



Thailand is planning to "legally" break the patents of three more drugs, two of which are medications for HIV treatment and the other for the country's most common type of heart disease, Public Health Minister Dr Mongkol na Songkhla said yesterday.

The country is in critical need of the drugs yet cannot afford to cover the cost of treatment due to the limited healthcare budget, he said.

The universal healthcare scheme that takes care of around 48 million Thais, including about 500,000 people living with HIV and an enormous number of patients with cardiovascular heart disease, has an insufficient budget to ensure treatment for all, said Mongkol.

He added that many people receiving treatment for HIV had faced severe allergy problems with drugs and needed to move on to a second-line drug which remained expensive.

Drugs for heart disease were also too expensive for the scheme to pay for.

In the case of heart disease, the drug required costs about Bt70 per tablet, or 10 times higher than the price of a generic version of the same drug, he said.

The average cost of HIV treatment using second-line drugs is between Bt1,300 to Bt2,000 per patient per month - compared to only about Bt680 for treatment using generic drugs.

"We need to use this method in order to make good drugs more affordable and accessible," said Mongkol.

The minister requested to withhold further details of the three drugs until the ministry announces the government's compulsory licensing officially on January 29.

Moreover, Mongkol said, the Clinton Foundation along with 22 American house representatives had expressed their support for Thailand's move to impose compulsory licensing to improve public access to life-saving drugs.

There were more drugs being considered for compulsory licensing (CL), he said. "We are not simply going to do CL on more and more drugs, but only the drugs in critical need that the state cannot afford to buy."

Usually, it would be a drug the country had bought at the price of the original product for several years - not a new drug, Mongkol said.

"CL is legitimate domestically and internationally and Thailand is not the first to do compulsory licensing," he said, adding the US had done over 300 compulsory licensings of drugs

The first so-called compulsory licensing in Thailand was carried out on Efavirenz, an antiretroviral drug.

The first import of the generic version of the drug from India is expected to arrive on February 10, said Mongkol.

The imported drug is to be used while waiting for the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation to produce a generic version of Efavirenz on its own.


Arthit Khwankom
The Nation

NHSO extends drug licensing
15/06/2010

'Move ensures Aids medications available'

The National Health Security Office board has opted to extend its compulsory licensing in order to produce generic versions of two life-saving Aids drugs until the end of their patents.

The extension of the scheme which overrides the patents for Efavirenz and a combination of Lopinavir and Ritonavir drugs was crucial to help cut the cost of treating people living with HIV/Aids, Public Health Minister Jurin Laksanavisit said yesterday after chairing the NHSO board meeting.

The patent for Efavirenz will expire on Jan 31, 2012, and that for the Lopinavir/Ritonavir combination on Dec 4, 2016.

The cheaper generic versions of the two anti-retroviral drugs were needed even more after the cabinet approved the inclusion of people pending nationality verification into the NHSO's universal healthcare scheme in March this year.

The compulsory licensing has saved 1.18 billion baht in costs purchasing anti-retroviral drugs under the scheme.

And the scheme should be able to save 3.2 billion baht more of the anti-retroviral drug costs if the compulsory licensing of the two drugs is extended until the end of their patents, he said.

Thailand's compulsory licensing has also forced down the prices of Efavirenz and the Lopinavir-Ritonavir combination by 3.4 and 6.4 times respectively, Mr Jurin said.

Before the compulsory licensing of the two drugs, about 4,539 people living with HIV/Aids obtained access to Efavirenz and only 39 to the Lopinavir-Ritonavir combination, he said.

But with the compulsory licensing of the drugs, the number of patients receiving Efavirenz has increased to 29,360 and 6,246 people now receive the Lopinavir/Ritonavir combination, he said.

Health activists applauded the NHSO's decision.

Aids Access Foundation director Nimit Thien-udom said coverage of people eligible to access the two drugs will be extended to state enterprise staff, who were previously forced to pay for the drugs out of their own pocket.

Mr Nimit said state enterprise staff have long been forced to shoulder the cost of the two drugs because to seek reimbursement meant they will have to tell their offices what type of treatment they are receiving, Mr Nimit said.

Many refuse to seek reimbursement for fear that others will find out they are HIV-positive.

Kannikar Kittivejakul, of the Chulalongkorn University's consumer health protection programme, hailed the NHSO's decision, saying it will largely benefit people living with HIV/Aids and help the government save funds for buying the anti-retroviral drugs.

The cost of treatment with Efavirenz has fallen from 1,200 baht a person a month to only 300 baht a person a month, she said.

The Public Health Ministry announced it will implement the compulsory licensing of seven drugs including the two Aids drugs, a medicine for the treatment of heart and brain blood vessel disease, and four other drugs for treatment of cancer.

bangkokpost.com