Thailand's "patent busting" goes ahead

The headline of Thailand's Bangkok Post expressed it succinctly: "Patent busting moves ahead." The country's National Health Security Office has widened its investigation of access to drugs to include the distribution system for the top-selling products, as well as considering more compulsory licenses to add to those already announced (Marketletters passim).

Among the drugs on the military-supported government's suspected target list is Swiss drug major Novartis' oncology drug Glivec/Gleevec (imatinib). In Thailand, classified as a middle-income country by the World Bank, the drug costs about 3,600 baht ($111.80) per day according to the Bangkok Post. A daily supply of copycat versions of the leukemia therapy could be obtained for only 80 baht, the newspaper claims.

In related news, the Thai government has announced plans to buy generic versions of US drug major Merck & Co's antiretroviral Stocrin (efavirenz), after hopes of an agreement on a discount for the country's 220,000 HIV/AIDS patients failed (Marketletter May 28), Bloomberg news service reports. Thailand's Public Health Minister, Mongkol Na Songkhla, said: "negotiations didn't come out as good as we expected. If their prices aren't more than 5% above the generic drugs, we won't hesitate to buy from them. Now, their prices are 20% higher."