Govt to pay royalty for compulsory licences
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will compensate pharmaceutical companies affected by the Public Health Ministry's decision to enforce compulsory licensing - at a rate of 0.5 per cent of sales of generic medicines.
"We have invited the companies to the negotiating table on April 10," FDA secretary-general Dr Siriwat Thiptharadon said yesterday. He was speaking in his capacity as chairman of the panel in charge of negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies affected by compulsory licensing. Compulsory licences force patent holders to grant the use of a copyright, or other exclusive rights, to a government or others in "philosophically justified", non-commercial cases. The patent holder can receive some royalties. Late last year, the Health Ministry enforced a compulsory licence for the HIV drug Efavirenz. Earlier this year, it invoked a compulsory licence for the HIV/Aids drug Kaletra and the anti-clotting agent Plavix. According to Siriwat, MSD (Thailand), which holds the Efavirenz patent, has acknowledged the royalty offer and has offered to sell 600 mg Efavirenz pills at Bt726 per bottle, which was quite close to the FDA proposed price of Bt650 (excluding incentives for the firm). Siriwat said Sanofi-Aventis (Thailand), which holds the Plavix patent said it would inform its parent company about the royalty offer from FDA.
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