Thailand seeks deeper drug price cuts than Brazil deal

By Darren Schuettler

BANGKOK, July 6 (Reuters) - Thailand wants deeper price cuts than Brazil agreed with Abbott Laboratories Inc (ABT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) this week to prevent it breaking the patent on its AIDS drug Kaletra, a Thai health official said on Friday.

Vichai Chokevivat, an architect of Bangkok's controversial policy to override patents on Kaletra and two other drugs, said Abbott's $1,000 per patient, per year offer to Brazil was too high compared to generic versions costing $695 a year.

"This is the same offer they made to Thailand a few months ago on the condition that we stop the CL. That is a condition we cannot accept," he told Reuters.

The compulsory licences (CL), which Thailand announced on two HIV-AIDS drugs and a heart medicine and says are legal under world trade rules, has drawn flak from global drug makers, but applause from some health advocacy groups.

Thai price talks with the three drug makers -- Abbott, Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Europe's Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) -- have produced no deals. Thailand has only imported generic versions of Merck's Efavirenz so far.

Abbott has stuck to its offer of $1,000 per patient per year for a heat-stable version of Kaletra which can survive in tropical climates like Thailand without costly cold storage.

Talks with Abbott, which has refused to register new medicines in Thailand until the compulsory licence issue is resolved, resume in two weeks, Wichai said.

"If the original price is 5 percent higher than the generic product, we will consider the original product," he said. "If it is more, we will consider the generic product."

BUDGET PRESSURE OR THEFT?

Thailand, a former AIDS hotspot, has won praise for reducing infections and expanding drug treatment to more than 100,000 of the 580,000 Thais living with the disease.

But the government says it faces budget pressures as more people need treatment through the national health scheme, which covers 80 percent of Thailand's 63 million people.

It will spend $100 million on HIV-AIDS programmes this year, but the drug industry's defenders accuse the government of stealing intellectual property and question its spending priorities.

The army-backed, post-coup government announced a 24 percent rise in annual military spending this week compared to a 4.6 percent rise for health care.

Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla said this week he was considering two more licences this year that would allow the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO), the state drug maker, to buy or produce copycat versions.