Kultida Samabuddhi, of the Bangkok Post, who attended a ‘Reporting HIV/Aids’ workshop in Bangkok, reports on a panel session there with his country’s controversial former Public Health Minister.

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Two years after he outraged drugs manufacturers by overriding their patents and ordering compulsory licensing of three life-saving drugs, former Public Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla insists it was the right decision.

After taking the most controversial steps in the history of the Public Health Ministry, the 66-year-old former rural doctor was bombarded by criticism from pharmaceutical giants and heavy pressure from trade agencies here and abroad.

Two costly AIDS treatments -- MSD’s Efavirenz and Abbott Laboratories’ Kaletra -- were among the first three drugs licensed by the military-installed government to allow production and import of generic versions.

The manufacturers condemned the move as violating their intellectual properties rights.

Abbott later withdrew registration of newly-developed essential drugs, including the heat-resistant version of its AIDS drug Aluvia, in retaliation against the Thai government’s compulsory licensing policy.

Soon after the compulsory licensing the US government put Thailand on the Priority Watch List of countries with very poor records of intellectual property rights protection, which led to the withdrawal of trade privileges the US had granted to Thailand . Many trade and health experts saw the move as resulting from the drug patents issue.

At that time, the embattled Dr Mongkol staunchly defended the move, maintaining that it was legitimate under the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectuals Properties Rights (TRIPS).

More importantly, it sought to give Thais access to cheap drugs and cut government expenditure on their purchase.

He was not alone in defending the scheme. Health activists and officials, patient networks and even members of the US House of Representatives have publicly supported the Thai government’s action.

Since 2006, the issue has been faded from public attention due to political unrest. But for Dr Mongkol, the issue is remains vivid in his mind.

“I have nothing to lose in protecting Thai people,” Dr Mongkol told a closed-door panel on compulsory licensing organized by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Bangkok on November 11.

He said the licensing scheme had sharply cut the drugs prices, thus saving money in the state coffer.

For example, Efavirenz now cost 5.8 times lower than the manufacturer’s price, while Kaletra is 2.6 times cheaper.

Drugs companies which had never shown interest in negotiating price cuts with the government agree to hold talks after the compulsory lcensing was announced, Dr Mongkol noted.

“Even the patented products reduced their prices significantly,” he said.

The former minister said what he had learned was that implementation of TRIPS flexibilities is possible and allows much more access to essential medicines.

He also learned that a combination of wisdom and social and political powers is a key to success of Thailand ’s effort to afford cheap drugs for the needy through compulsory licensing.

The first batch of ‘copycat’ second-line generic AIDS drugs, Kaletra, worth 21 million baht, had already reach needy HIV-positive patients throughout the country in February this year.

Paul Cawthorne, access campaign officer of Medicins Sans Frontieres in Asia, said the issuing of compulsory licences for AIDS, heart disease and cancer drugs not only benefited Thai patients, but was also “a huge service to the world” as it encouraged other countries to follow suit for the benefit of their people.

But Cawthorne said the road ahead was not smooth for Thailand .

The United States and some European countries had sought to introduce new counterfeit law to block developing countries’ import of generic drugs, he said, adding that some countries, such as Kenya, had already been pressured into enforcing such a law.

“The fight is not over,” he said.

END