Thursday, March 15, 2007

Drug Patent Theft Is New Growth Industry in Thailand    [Jack Fowler]

Given how foreign governments are increasingly hijacking medicine patents, it’s a wonder how or why pharmaceuticals invest billions in drug development. Thailand’s military bosses have just baldly swiped the rights to produce Kaletra, an HIV/AIDS drug developed and manufactured by Abbott, among other drugs. Former FDA honcho Peter Pitts has an excellent  Baltimore Sun piece on this, and the consequences of such piracy:

In a speech in Thailand last week, three days after the Thai government's arbitrary decision, Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, laid out the key reasons that communicable diseases remain such a large problem in poor countries and are often neglected by research and development. One of those reasons, she explained, is that the pharmaceutical industry "has little incentive to develop drugs and vaccines for markets that cannot pay" . . . such theft discourages innovation. Drug development is an enormously expensive, time-consuming venture requiring years of effort by teams of highly trained researchers.  

Meanwhile, the Thai junta is also threatening to begin production of 11 additional drugs, including Pfizer’s anti-cholesterol drug, Lipitor, and Novartis’ leukemia drug, Gleevec. Industry expert Robert Goldberg wrote recently in the Washington Times (link at his blog, Drugwonks.com) that while “Thailand claims it needs to make or import generic drugs to treat everyone with every disease,” the real reason for this government-sanctioned thievery is that old favorite – greed:

Weaker intellectual property protection allows the Thai junta to line its pockets with the proceeds made from copycat products it can sell at huge margins, money it can then turn around and spend to reward cronies and buy political support.

This is a big deal for U.S. drug manufacturers, especially since India, Brazil, and other countries, particularly in South/Latin America, are threatening to do as Thailand (and China – an old hand at patent rip-offs).

03/15 04:21 PMShare