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by wsc981
2518 days ago
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Perhaps more countries should follow Thailand's approach: On January 25, 2007, Thailand’s interim government issued compulsory licenses–which require
manufacturers to license generic versions of their patented drugs–for two Western medicines:
Kaletra, an advanced anti-AIDS medicine manufactured by Abbott; and Plavix, a blood-thinning
treatment to help prevent heart disease, produced by the France-based Sanofi-Aventis and U.S.
firm Bristol-Myers Squibb. These attacks were preceded in November 2006 by a violation of
Merck’s patent on the anti-AIDS drug Stocrin.[5] The government threatened to break
patents on eleven more drugs.[6] Explaining the rationale behind Thailand’s decision, health
minister Mongkol Na Songkhla said that “the move is permissible under international trade
rules in the event of national public health emergencies. . . . We have to do this because we
don’t have enough money to buy safe and necessary drugs for the people under the government’s
universal health scheme.”[7]
Source: http://www.aei.org/publication/thailand-and-the-drug-patent-...Perhaps "evergreening" is also an issue in the USA that might keep prices high for a long time? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3680578/ |
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> On January 25, 2007, Thailand’s interim government issued compulsory licenses–which require manufacturers to license generic versions of their patented drugs–for two Western medicines: Kaletra, an advanced anti-AIDS medicine manufactured by Abbott; and Plavix, a blood-thinning treatment to help prevent heart disease, produced by the France-based Sanofi-Aventis and U.S. firm Bristol-Myers Squibb. These attacks were preceded in November 2006 by a violation of Merck’s patent on the anti-AIDS drug Stocrin.[5] The government threatened to break patents on eleven more drugs.[6] Explaining the rationale behind Thailand’s decision, health minister Mongkol Na Songkhla said that “the move is permissible under international trade rules in the event of national public health emergencies. . . . We have to do this because we don’t have enough money to buy safe and necessary drugs for the people under the government’s universal health scheme.”