Thailand’s Health Minister: ‘The Poor Will Lose’

The country’s outgoing Health Minister, Mongkol na Songkhla, defended stuck by his controversial policy of challenging patent rights and, in an interview with Reuters, says the poor would lose if the policy is revered by a new pro-business government that’s due to take power next month.

Mongkol, a hero to health activists and vilified by drugmakers for overriding patents on two AIDS drugs and a heart medicine, is now targeting four cancer drugs in his final days in office. Shortly after a Dec. 23 election marking Thailand’s return to democracy, Mongkol approved compulsory licences allowing Bangkok to make or buy generic versions of the cancer meds.

But Thai negotiators will seek a final round of talks before using the licenses. “They have already met twelve times. If they cannot achieve what they want, they can use the signed papers,” Mongkol, 66, tells Reuters. The drugs include the Femara breast cancer drug sold by Novartis, the Taxotere breast and lung cancer med made by Sanofi-Aventis, and Roche’s Tarceva lung cancer drug. The government argues it can’t afford patented drugs for its national health plan, which covers 80 percent of its 63 million people. Last week, however, Bangkok struck a deal with Novartis over Gleevec.

Pharma was stunned in 2006 when Mongkol, a former rural doctor and senior health bureaucrat appointed by the military after a recent coup, launched one of the biggest challenges to their patent rights in years. He overrode the patent on Merck’s AIDS drug Efavirenz, enabling Thailand to buy a cheaper generic from an Indian firm. Months later, he did the same on an AIDS drug made by Abbott Labs and a Sanofi-Aventis heart medicine.

Drugmakers denounced what they called a violation of intellectual property rights and the US Trade Representative put Bangkok on its “priority watch list”, citing weaker respect for patents. With a pro-business coalition government due to take power as early as next week, pharma is betting on a policy change. The industry’s trade group in Thailand says the new government “understands that collaboration with all stakeholders in the health sector is needed to address the real issues affecting the quality of healthcare and development of innovation-based industries”.

Mongkol, who has said the coup gave him an opportunity to act after a year of failed price talks with drug firms, insisted Thailand had acted legally under World Trade Organization rules. “I think if any country, including the United States, did not agree with what we did, they should change the law,” he says. On speculation that his successor would reverse the compulsory licenses, Mongkol said: “If anyone wants to change it, it’s their responsibility. The people who will lose are the poor.”

Meanwhile, there are reports circulating in Bangkok that pharma is lobbying Washington for sanctions against Thaliand. Puangrat Asavapisit, Thailand’se Intellectual Property Department’s director-general, says she was informed the trade group met last week in Singapore and that the action would involve the US Trade Representative downgrading Thailand from the current Priority Watch list to Priority Foreign Country, the last and most severe US copyright protection category and subject to trade sanctions.