Health groups plan more compulsory licensing moves

The Nation, February 28, 2007
by Arthit Khwankhom


Major health advocacy groups joined hands yesterday with three networks of patients with high-cost chronic diseases in a bid to encourage the government to press for cheaper drugs.

They will collect data about patients with kidney failure, cancer and heart disease for use in a bid to get the government to do more compulsory licensing.

"Data is the key to success," said Nimitr Tien-udom, director of Aids Access, speaking of the lesson learned from the successful compulsory licensing of two HIV drugs and one heart-disease medication.

"We have fought for more than seven years [with no success], but the National Health Security Office, with convincing data in hand, discussed the issue only three times before announcing the recent compulsory licensing."

A network of patients called the Kidney Disease Friends Club said it expected to come up with complete data on what type of medication patients used to survive and the cost burden it caused them.

About 40,000 patients are receiving kidney dialysis at cost of Bt15,000 to Bt30,000 per person per month, while about the same number have no access to the life-saving treatment due to the cost, said president Subil Noksakul.

Subil has been living with chronic kidney failure for 16 years and spent about Bt4.5 million on dialysis and associated treatment.

Saree Aungsomwang, who leads a coalition of non-government organisations on health, said the coalition and government pharmaceutical and health experts had agreed to work with all groups of patients with devastating diseases including heart disease and cancer.

"We hope to see compulsory licensing as a consumer-protection measure [to be used by the government] in terms of access to medicinal treatment," Saree revealed.

Compulsory licensing was a mechanism allowed by the World Trade Organisation's international agreement to be used for the sake of public health in the event of a market monopoly awarded to drug patent holders, said Assoc Prof Jiraporn Limpananont of Chulalongkorn University's social pharmacy research unit.

"Such a monopoly allows a pharmaceutical company to quote as high a price as it wants for 20 years," she said. "That is why the drugs are expensive and many patients cannot afford to buy and have died."

In the United States, the pharmaceutical industry had always been in the top three for profits, said Sorachai Jumniendumrong-karn, a senior pharmaceutical expert with the National Health Security Office.