Thailand threatens to produce more copycat drugs

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand, which has upset big drug companies by issuing patent-overriding licenses for generic versions of heart and HIV/AIDS pills, said on Monday it would issue more unless the firms cut prices.

Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla told Reuters a ministry panel was studying drugs Thailand needed and could make or buy copies of while haggling for "appropriate" prices of patented versions.

"If they give us a certain amount of discount, we won't do it," Mongkol said, referring to compulsory licenses governments are allowed to issue to domestic firms to produce generic versions of drugs in emergencies.

"We don't call this a threat, but a negotiation for the country's benefit," Mongkol said in a telephone interview.

Last week, the Health Ministry issued compulsory licenses for the heart disease drug Plavix, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis and Abbott Laboratories' Kaletra to treat

HIV/AIDS.

The licenses, which Thai health officials said would save the country up to 800 million baht ($24 million) a year, drew praise from AIDS activists, but flak from Washington and the drug industry, which are urging the ministry to rescind them.

Mongkol said the ministry would enforce the licenses only if it failed to get the two patented drugs from the firms at prices it was prepared to pay.

"If they reduce the prices to a level that we are satisfied, we won't enforce them," said Mongkol, who first angered drug companies in November by issuing Thailand's first such license for Merck's Efavirenz anti-retroviral AIDS treatment.

The price of Plavix would drop by more than 90 percent to 6 baht ($0.18) per tablet if made generically, Thai health officials say.

Plavix is Bristol-Myers Squibb's biggest-selling medicine with annual sales of $6 billion before a copycat Canadian manufactured version hit the market briefly in August.

Paul Cawthorne, head of Doctors Without Borders in Thailand, backed the military-appointed government's action, saying it was spending 11,580 baht ($347) per patient per month for Kaletra and could cut that by two thirds with a generic version.

Mongkol declined to confirm a report in Thai Rath, the leading Thai newspaper, quoting him as saying further compulsory licenses could cover cancer, cholesterol-reducing drugs and some anti-biotics.

"These were the drugs proposed by the panel a long time ago, which could be changed anytime," he said.

The newspaper quoted Mongkol as saying drugs under consideration were Rituxan, a big-selling drug for lymphoma, and a rheumatoid arthritis drug owned by Genentech Inc. and Biogen Idec Inc.

Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, a government is allowed to declare a "national emergency" and license the production or sale of a patented drug without the permission of the foreign patent owner.

($1=33.40 baht)