Draft amendments to the Drug Patent Act will do more harm than good, HIV/Aids groups say. They want changes scrapped or a "transparent revision".

An amendment proposed by the Department of Intellectual Property will bar objections to drug patents for six months following their award.

The Drug Patent Act 1979 allows objections at any time, according Thai Network of People Living with HIV/Aids president Virat Phurahong.

He asserted the right to challenge patents was important, especially in cases of "trick patenting".

Virat said British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline had been forced to withdraw a patent application in Thailand for the HIV anti-retroviral therapy Combid after a challenge by local and international HIV/Aids groups.

They claimed the drug was not new because it was simply a combination of existing anti-retrovirals and was not an invention.

If a patent had been granted the price of Combid would have been five times higher than a generic version produced by the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation, Virat said, adding it would have been forced to stop production.

Virat said another problem with the amendment was that it permitted patent applications before new drugs had been fully developed.

"If you think a certain substance has the potential to become a drug, you can seek a patent for it," he said. "This would prevent others from conducting research into that same substance and developing their own drug from it."

Virat said the planned changes would allow drug owners to amend patents "at least once".

"Tricky" drug companies could use this to extend patents for drugs indefinitely.

"This is not transparent," he alleged.

The department's amendment has been denied Cabinet approval once, but Virat said the depart-

ment planned to resubmit it with-out addressing the network's concerns.

Arthit Khwankhom

The Nation