Merck lowers price of patented Aids medicine
Company will also offer free drug package for 2,500 children
After months of negotiations, the Public Health Minis-try has finally succeeded in making the giant drug firm Merck lower the prices of its patented HIV/AIDS drug efavirenz.
The company will also offer a special package to provide free Aids drugs to 2,500 children, said the chairman of the ministry's committee on compulsory licensing.
Dr Vichai Chokewiwat, also chairman of the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) board, said yesterday that Merck's Thai subsidiary, MSD Thailand, had agreed to cut the price of efavirenz to Bt767 per patient per month, almost half its original price of Bt1,400. The new price includes value added tax.
Vichai said the new price had been "offered verbally" yesterday by MSD Thailand to Dr Siriwat Thiptaradol, secretary-general of the GPO, yesterday.
Besides slashing the price, Merck offered a special package to give the liquid version of efavirenz free to 2,500 children infected with HIV, and to sponsor a programme to diagnose children as HIV positive and provide other treatment to children with HIV.
Vichai said that although the latest price offered by MSD Thailand was still 5 per cent higher than the generic version it was likely the ministry would buy the Aids drug, which has been put under compulsory licence, from MSD Thailand as the special package offered by the company was so "interesting".
However, he said, Merck still has to officially submit its offer in writing by June 12 to the ministry's committee on price negotiation for patented essential drugs.
Efavirenz was the first drug patent that Thailand decided to ignore by allowing a cheaper generic version to be imported for patients under three government programmes: the universal health scheme, the social-security fund and medical-welfare benefit for state officials.
The process, called compulsory licensing, is allowed by the World Trade Organisation's agreement on intellectual property rights.
Around 20,000 Thais, including some 13,000 on the government programmes, take efavirenz.
Early this year, the first lot of 16,000 doses of generic efavirenz were imported from India at Bt670 a dose, including tax and transportation and other related expenses.
The decision of MSD Thailand to halve the cost of its efavirenz was welcomed by Aids activists and those who advocate drug access.
Jiraporn Limpananont, a lecturer from Chulalongkorn university's Faculty of Pharmacy, said this proved the original price of the drug was set at whatever the company liked.
"It is clear evidence that the original drug price does not reflect the real cost of drug development and investment," she said.
MSD Thailand became the first drug firm among the three companies that hold patents for the three drugs put under compulsory licence to lower its price to compete with the generic version.
The other two companies, Abbott Laboratories, which holds the patent for Lopinavir/Ritonavir, and Sanofi-Aventis, the patent-holder of Clopidogrel, are still negotiating with the health ministry.
The Nation
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