INTERVIEW-Thai health minister defends drug patent policy
By Darren Schuettler
BANGKOK, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Thailand's outgoing Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla defended on Thursday his unprecedented challenge of foreign drug patent rights, saying the poor would lose if a new government reversed the policy.
Mongkol, a hero to health activists and vilified by major drug firms for overriding patents on two AIDS drugs and a heart medicine, is targeting four cancer drugs in his final days in office before a new government takes power next month.
In early January, soon after a Dec. 23 election marking Thailand's return to democracy after a 2006 coup, Mongkol approved compulsory licences allowing Bangkok to make or buy cheaper, copycat versions of the cancer medicines.
But Thai negotiators will seek a final round of talks with the drug firms before using the licences, he said.
"They have already met twelve times. If they cannot achieve what they want, they can use the signed papers," Mongkol, 66, told Reuters in an interview.
He did not name the drugs, but the Bangkok Post has said the four were Letrozole and Imanitib made by Novartis (NOVN.VX), Docetaxel by Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA) and Roche's (ROG.VX) Erlotinib.
Cancer is Thailand's number one killer and the government says it cannot afford patented drugs for its national health scheme, which covers 80 percent of its 63 million people.
Major drug makers were stunned in late 2006 when Mongkol, a former rural doctor and senior health bureaucrat appointed by the military after the 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 version from an Indian firm. Months later he did the same on an AIDS drug made by Abbott Laboratories and a Sanofi-Aventis heart medicine.
Global drug makers denounced what they called a violation of intellectual property rights and the United States 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, drug makers are betting on a policy change.
Thailand's Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association said this week 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 Organisation rules.
"I think if any country, including the United States, did not agree with what we did, they should change the law," he said.
On speculation that his successor would reverse the compulsory licences, Mongkol said: "If anyone wants to change it, it's their responsibility. The people who will lose are the poor". (Editing by Michael Battye)
