• 
• 

Published on December 4, 2007

Dr Siriwat Tiptaradol, chairman of the negotiating committee for the compulsory licensing of patented drugs, said after a three-hour-meeting with the firms yesterday there had been little progress on reducing the prices of the drugs.

"The drug companies had offered to reduce their prices to lower than the market price but it is still too expensive for patients," he said.

Siriwat said if the companies could not reduce their prices to an affordable level and patients could not afford the drugs, the committee would terminate negotiations this month.

It would then submit a report on all aspects of the negotiations to the minister of Public Health to consider compulsory licensing for the drugs imatinib, docetaxel, erlotinib and lectrozole. Novartis markets imatinib as Glivec; Sanofi-Aventis makes docetaxel as Taxotere; and erlotinib is manufactured by OSI Pharmaceu-ticals as Tarceva.

The drugs are prescribed for leukaemia and breast and lung cancers. Lectrozole is a steroid.

Siriwat said since the Health Ministry began talks with the drug companies last October, Novartis had offered imatinib free for patients registered under the universal health care scheme, but for lectrozole the company offered only a slightly cheaper price from its original rate.  Lectrozole is necessary for patients who suffer with breast cancer. There are 6,000 such patients across country who need to take the drug every day, but the market price is expensive.

Siriwat said lectrozole costs Bt215 per tablet, but the Indian generic version was only Bt8.

He said if Novartis offered a reasonable price before the next meeting, which will be held on December 17, he would ask the National Health Security Office, which is responsible for giving the drugs to patients under the universal health care scheme, to sign a contract with the company to buy two million lectrozole tablets next year.

He said the Health Ministry would ask Sanofi-Aventis and Roche to join a meeting to negotiate prices after the two companies informed the committee yesterday they were not ready to negotiate with the ministry because they needed more time to collect information about the number of patients who suffer with cancer in Thailand.

Moreover, they had to wait for decisions from their mother companies.

Pongphon Sarnsamak

 The Nation