The Thai Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association yesterday called for the government to revoke the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation's special privileges that force state hospitals to purchase medical products from it.
TPMA president Chernporn Tengamnuay said the special purchase procedures enjoyed by the GPO must be revoked, in order to support freemarket competition and help local manufacturers survive amid fierce competition with foreign pharmaceutical companies.
"The GPO is now trying to improve its capacity to produce medical products and compete with private drugmakers. Who will gain from this?" he said at a TPMAsponsored seminar entitled "The Right to Access Medicine and Problems That Need to Be Resolved".
Chernporn said the GPO should not produce generic drugs to compete with local pharmaceutical companies, because that would discourage development between the state drugmanufacturing agency and private pharmaceutical companies.
He said the GPO should produce drugs that private manufacturers did not have the capacity to produce, such as "orphan drugs", which are pharmaceutical agents developed specifically to treat rare medical conditions.
"Private drugmakers are now very weak, due to government regulations favouring state drug manufacturers over freemarket competition," Chernporn said.
Thailand Development Research Institute researcher Jirawat Panpiemras agreed the regulations did not promote free and fair competition.
"The GPO's monopoly dampens the private sector's motivation to improve their products and human resources," he said.
GPO managing director Dr Witit Artavatkun said while he agreed with the TPMA's suggestion to revise regulations to support competition, the private sector must also be open to marketing strategies aimed at selling pharmaceutical products in the local market.
However, he said Finance Ministry regulations required the GPO, as a state enterprise, to show a profit.
Witit said the GPO previously had to submit Bt400 million a year to the Finance Ministry but that this year, the ministry required Bt600 million.
However, the GPO's profits are used for the public good, such as to produce medicines in response to emergency situations like the influenza pandemic and produce orphan drugs.
