Ex-US President Clinton backs Thailand on compulsory licensing  

BANGKOK, May 9 (TNA) – Thailand's stance on compulsory licensing won international backing as former US president Bill Clinton announced his full support for the kingdom's decision to override patents on key drugs to allow his country's poor to have access to essential medicines, Public Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla asserted Wednesday.

Speaking in a telephone interview from the United States Wednesday, Dr. Mongkol said Mr. Clinton backed Thailand's decision to import or produce generic versions of key drugs.

The minister, who travelled to the US on Monday, spoke after signing an agreement to purchase key cheaper drugs in bulk in tandem with other developing countries.

Clinton announced agreements with drug companies on Tuesday to lower the price of so-called "second-line" AIDS drugs for patients in the developing world and to make a once-a-day HIV-AIDS pill available for less than one US dollar a day, or about 20 per cent of a low-income workers daily wage in Bangkok.

Since leaving office in 2001, Bill Clinton has used the foundation that carries his name to tackle the global AIDS epidemic. Some 750,000 people are currently receiving drug treatments for Aids through the foundation.

"We are not coming here today to ask what Americans can do for us," Dr. Mongkol announced at a press conference with Mr. Clinton. "We come to commit our collective effort to bargain for high quality and low priced drugs in order to free our patients from their catastrophic illnesses."

In November, Thailand's Public Health Ministry issued a compulsory licence for Merck's HIV/Aids treatment drug Efavirenz followed by the second-line combination anti-retroviral therapy Kaletra made by Abbot Laboratories and the heart disease drug Plavix made by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis in January.

However, it has yet to be implemented because the stockpile of the two medications is currently projected to last until August.

Dr. Mongkol explained that his action was in accord with the WTO decision which allows developing countries to produce or import generic versions of patented drugs for government use without the permission of the foreign patent owners.

The move won much praise from AIDS activists but is drawing serious flak from the giant pharmaceutical firms and the US government.

On April 30, the US Trade Representative Office (USTR) placed Thailand and 11 other countries, including China and India, on its "Priority Watch List" of countries to be closely monitored for their protection on intellectual property rights.

Dr. Mongkol said he believed Thailand's move to effect compulsory licensing is the main reason for the US trade representative's decision. However, US ambassador to Thailand Ralph Boyce denied the allegation.

The minister is scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C. later this month to explain Thailand's position on compulsory licensing policies to USTR and other agencies concerned.

TNA

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Like Jimmy Carter , Bill Clinton seems to be a lot more likeable now that they are not President.

AtI last clinton has done something right. this issue is bigger than poor country , its a case about the poor people, who can't afford the cost of this medicine. abbot has made unreasonable profits for year, leaving the poor to whither away and die