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TWN Info Service on Intellectual Property Issues (Feb07/06) 13 February 2007
A controversy has emerged
on statements made by the new WHO Director General Dr Margaret Chan
on the compulsory licenses issued by the Thai government for the production
of three patented drugs (see TWN IP Info titled “ It started at the opening session on 1 February when she spoke on neglected diseases and she praised the multinational drug companies, as well as concluding that the solution to the neglected diseases problem was "drug donation", i.e. that the industry should donate drugs. On 2 February, the
The WHO DG apparently
gave warnings to On 2 February the Thai
NGOs organised a press conference during which five experts and NGOs
spoke, each one being very critical of the WHO DG position. Those who
spoke were Carlos Correa (professor in Indeed, the Thai NGOs
and organisations representing patients' rights, as well as many NGOs,
experts and individuals from outside Recently 426 individuals as well as organizations (representing people living with HIV/AIDS and their advocates around the world who are fighting for access to affordable treatment for HIV) have signed a letter to Dr. Margaret Chan, expressing disappointment at her comments as well as asking her to reconsider her comments regarding the Thai government’s decision to issue a compulsory license for the production or importation of three drugs. The letter informs Dr. Margaret Chan that she has been “entrusted”, “to work for “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health”, but her comments did “not reflect this mission, and in fact work against it”, adding that it was their expectation that she would have congratulated Thailand for its efforts which is completely legal under WTO rules, to increase public health and access to medicines for its people”. News Reports on the Director General’s Statements and the various criticisms are found below: (1) a report by IPS press agency on the NGO criticism on WHO's DG and recent actions by WHO leadership (2) a report in (3) AIDS Healthcare Foundation's criticism of the WHO DG's statements (4) With best wishes Health:
WHO Chief's By
Marwaan Macan-Markar, IPS, Civil society and humanitarian groups slammed the new head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), on the sidelines of a meeting here, after she appeared to favour the interests of pharmaceutical giants over the plight of the sick and the poor in the developing world. ''It is not the role of the WHO to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical companies,'' Dr. Ellen Hoen of the international humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders (or MSF for Medecins Sans Frontieres) said at a press conference, Friday. ''It is a reason for concern that the WHO takes a more conservative role than the WTO (World Trade Organisation).'' ''The new DG (director general) of the WHO should have stood up for the poor,'' added James Love, head of Knowledge Ecology International, a Washington D.C.-based group lobbying for cheaper generic drugs. ''This is a bad start. She needs to educate herself about intellectual property rights.'' A Thai AIDS rights activist was as critical. ''The WHO has to look more closely at its role in the global public health campaign. It must be able to stand up to the threats of big pharmaceutical companies,'' said Nimit Tienudom, director of AIDS Access Foundation, a Bangkok-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) campaign for cheaper anti-AIDS drugs. The rebukes were in response to comments made Thursday by Dr. Margaret Chan who was appointed to head the global health agency in November last year. On two occasions, say her critics, she failed to express her support for developing countries fighting for cheaper alternatives to expensive branded drugs. What she eventually said should embolden the pharmaceutical industry, they add. The most troubling for champions of cheaper alternative drugs were the comments made by Chan when she visited Thailand's National Health Security Office (NHSO), where she cautioned against hasty embrace of countries resorting to 'compulsory licencing' to secure cheaper generic drugs. ''I'd like to underline that we have to find a right balance for compulsory licencing. We can't be naïve about this. There is no perfect solution for accessing drugs in both quality and quantity,'' Chan is quoted as having said at the NHSO, according to Friday's 'Bangkok Post' newspaper. Earlier in the day, Chan praised the pharmaceutical industry lavishly during a keynote address delivered at the opening of a two-day international conference that focused on ways to improve access to essential health technologies for neglected diseases. The event, hosted by a local university, attracted over 300 participants from the developing and developed world. The
stance taken by Chan comes at a pivotal moment in This
was the third drug in as many months that Thai AIDS and public health activists had been hoping that Chan's presence in Bangkok would boost the government's move to supply cheaper drugs for the country's 80,000 people with HIV who need anti-AIDS medication out of over 600,000 who have the killer disease. Chan's
comments have broader implications, too, since they come at a time when
the Geneva-based health agency is under increasing scrutiny by NGOs
and public health advocates. The latter fear that the WHO is selling
out to the pharmaceutical industry given the pressure imposed on it
by the Few
events illustrate this climate better than the way William Aldis, the
WHO representative in It
was an event not lost on U.S. Congressman Jim McDermott. In a speech
to the House of Representatives in June 2006, McDermott drew attention
to the ''(This publication) spuriously characterises the trade policy of the United States as a threat to public health, and makes unnecessarily inflammatory and prejudicial recommendations as to how the United States can improve its trade policies,'' wrote William Steiger, a senior official at the U.S. department of health and human services, in an August 2006 letter to the acting director general of the WHO. What troubles civil society campaigners like Martin Khor, director of Third World Network, a Penang-based think tank, is the reluctance of the WHO to defend its position. ''It is not normal for the WHO to be silent on this issue of developing countries using TRIPS flexibility to get cheaper drugs,'' he told IPS. The current tendency of the WHO to cave into such pressure goes against the past record of the organisation as a leading advocate for developing countries to tap the special provisions in TRIPS, he added. ''The WHO should be encouraging countries to fully exploit TRIPS flexibility for the benefit of public health.'' (END/2007) Move to break drug patents lauded Experts: WHO should back Thai intentions By PIYAPORN WONGRUANG Under the World Trade Organisation's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips), a member country can break drug patents without letting the firms involved know if the move was to produce or import the patented drugs for government use. The compulsory licensing also covers non-Aids related drugs. ''Several
developing countries have granted licensing, especially for anti-Aids
drugs. Even the He also played down concerns that compulsory licensing would discourage medical firms from investing in new drug development, saying the scheme would cause only a minor impact on the drug industry, which could still make massive profits from selling new products. The
academic was one of the representatives from leading international non-governmental
organizations and academic institutes, which held a joint press conference
in The
move came after the government's endorsement of compulsory licensing
to produce generic versions of the anti-Aids drug Kaletra and the blood
thinner Plavix came up against fierce resistance from pharmaceutical
firms, which threatened to put drug investments in WHO
director-general Margaret Chan also cautioned Martin Khor, director of the Malaysia-based Third World Network, said under Trips, a country is not required to negotiate with the patent owners if the compulsory licensing is for government or non-commercial uses. The government should resist the pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and stand firm on its decision to produce cheap drugs for patients in need, said Mr Khor. Health experts and activists taking part in the press conference also expressed disappointment with the WHO's view on the patent breaking. Instead
of raising concerns about the move, they said, the WHO should have praised
The groups, including Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Bangkok-based Aids Access Foundation, called on the world health body to revert to its role of serving the public interest, and support the move to apply compulsory licensing. New WHO Chief Fails to Stand Up for People Living With AIDS Friday February 2, 5:45 pm ET AIDS Healthcare Foundation Says WHO Chief's Lack of Support for Thai Action on Compulsory AIDS Drug Licensing Makes it Clear That the 'Health of People Living With HIV in Thailand Is Not Among Her Priorities' LOS ANGELES, Feb. 2/PRNewswire/-- AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the US' largest HIV/AIDS healthcare and prevention and education provider, which operates free AIDS treatment clinics in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia, today blasted the World Health Organization's (WHO) newly-appointed Director General Margaret Chan for statements she made in response to Thailand's action on compulsory AIDS drug licensing which appear to favor pharmaceutical companies' interests over people living with HIV/AIDS in the developing world. The
WHO leader's comments -- made during a visit with Thailand's National
Health Security Office (NHSO) on Thursday -- comes on the heels of an
announcement made by the Government of Thailand regarding its intention
to break a patent on Abbott Laboratories' HIV/AIDS drug Kaletra by issuing
a compulsory license to produce a lower-cost version of the drug, in
order to increase access to the lifesaving medicine for its people.
Under the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS) Article 31, the Thai government has the authority
to issue a compulsory license in order to protect public health -- despite
a misconception that a "national emergency" is required as
a pre-condition to taking such action. Approximately 108,000 of 500,000
people living with HIV/AIDS in "AHF
is alarmed by Dr. Chan's comments regarding According to Thursday's Bangkok Post article, "WHO Raps Compulsory Licensing Plan" by Apiradee Treerutkuarkul (February 2, 2007): "The World Health Organization yesterday cautioned Thailand over its move to adopt compulsory licensing for producing generic versions of heart disease and anti-Aids drugs. "I'd like to underline that we have to find a right balance for compulsory licensing. We can't be naïve about this. There is no perfect solution for accessing drugs in both quality and quantity," said WHO director-general Margaret Chan. Speaking during a visit to the National Health Security Office, Dr Chan said she truly felt that the pharmaceutical industry was part of the solution to better drug access and that the government should open negotiations with drug firms over the issue." Last
week, AIDS Healthcare Foundation praised the Government of Thailand
for its plan to break the patents on the lifesaving HIV/AIDS drug Kaletra,
and hailed its efforts to step up the availability and use of generic
lifesaving drugs for the Thai people. The group called In
the Asia-Pacific region, AIDS Healthcare Foundation currently provides
free anti-retroviral treatment through its clinics in WHO raps compulsory licensing plan Govt urged to seek talks with drug firms By APIRADEE TREERUTKUARKUL The
World Health Organisation yesterday cautioned ''I'd like to underline that we have to find a right balance for compulsory licensing. We can't be naive about this. There is no perfect solution for accessing drugs in both quality and quantity,'' said WHO director-general Margaret Chan. Speaking during a visit to the National Health Security Office, Dr Chan said she truly felt that the pharmaceutical industry was part of the solution to better drug access and that the government should open negotiations with drug firms over the issue. She encouraged the Public Health Ministry to improve the public-private partnership in order to give the public better access to drugs. Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla declined to comment on the issue. The president of Aids Access Foundation, Nimit Tienudom, dismissed the WHO director-general's standpoint. ''It's disappointing. The organisation should have supported drug access and promoted the study of quality and inexpensive drugs for the sake of the global population rather than supporting pharmaceutical giants.'' The ministry last week endorsed a policy for the compulsory licensing of two drugs _ Kaletra, an advanced anti-Aids drug, and Plavix, a treatment for heart disease by invoking Article 51 of the 1992 Patent Law to import or produce a generic version of the two drugs. In November, the ministry issued the same law to import and produce the anti-Aids drug Efavirenz, resulting in a reduction in the price from 1,400 baht to 700 baht per monthly course. Plavix will cost just six baht per tablet under compulsory licensing, while the original price was 70 baht. The patented regimen of the second-line anti-retroviral drug costs 11,580 baht a month per patient and this could be cut to a third under compulsory licensing. About 108,000 of 500,000 people living with HIV/Aids depend on GPO-VIR, the generic version of the first-line anti-retroviral therapy produced by the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation. An estimated 20,000 HIV-positive people have developed resistance to the drug, and need a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir, which is marketed as Kaletra. However the country's Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association disapproves of the decision, claiming that compulsory licensing could result in more companies relinquishing patents for heart and anti-Aids drugs and that it could lead to the isolation of Thailand from the global biotechnology investment community. Kaletra is manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, and Plavix by Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squib.
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