Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla addresses a press briefing in New York yesterday as former US president Bill Clinton, second left, looks on. Mongkol was in New York to sign an agreement with the Clinton Foundation and 16 other developing countr

His comments followed the announcement by Clinton yesterday of a deal, reached in partnership with international drugs organisation Unitaid and generic drug manufacturers Cipla and Matrix, that would drastically reduce the cost of second line anti-retroviral HIV/Aids medicines for 66 developing nations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

"I strongly support the position of the governments of Thailand and Brazil and their decisions after futile negotiations to break these patents," Mongkol quoted Clinton as saying.

Speaking in a telephone interview from the United States yesterday, Mongkol said it was an honour for the country to be supported by the former president.

Mongkol issued a compulsory licence last November for the anti-retroviral drug Efavirenz, owned by US pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp and Dohme. It was the first time the country had exercised its right to break patent protection for expensive medication.

Early this year, two more compulsory licences were awarded to another Aids drug, Kaletra, a product of Illinois-based Abbott Labora-tories, and Plavix, a heart disease drug made by Sanofi-Aventis. Last Friday Brazil also decided to break the patent on Efavirenz.

Although the World Trade Organisation allows nations to break patents in the interest of public health, Thailand's move sparked an uproar among drug makers.

Mongkol is now in the US to explain the country's reasons for breaking patents on the three expensive medicines and to sign an agreement with the Clinton Foundation for bulk purchases of essential Aids drugs at cheap prices.

The drugs in the Clinton Foundation's pricing agreement include both first and second-line drugs essential to HIV-Aids patients. The second-line anti-retroviral drugs, used when a patient becomes resistant to initial treatment, cost 10 times as much as the first-line drugs, Clinton said. Nearly half a million patients will require these drugs by 2010.

"That's a very great strain on countries' healthcare budgets and governments fear all over the world that they will simply not be able to keep pace with some treatment," Clinton told reporters in New York.

"The prices are simply exorbitant in middle-income countries like Brazil and Thailand. These countries are home to fully half the people on treatment.

"Our announcement today responds directly to these challenges and sets the foundation not only for treatment for many more people, but treatment that is more equitable, more affordable and more effective," he added.

The deal means Thailand, as a member of the foundation's Procurement Consortium, can buy advanced anti-retroviral drugs at a fraction of the current cost, Mongkol said.

"Thailand, which has 30,000 patients who need these anti-retroviral drugs, will benefit from this scheme. It will make the price of the drugs five to six times cheaper," he said in an interview from the US.

Patients would now be able to get medication that was previously too expensive for Thailand to provide, he said.

One of the 10 drugs included in the scheme is Aluvia, a heat-stable version of Kaletra that was under patent protection by Thai law. Jon Ungpakorn, secretary general of the Aids Access Foundation, said a compulsory licence was needed to be able to import the drug.

The procurement makes Aluvia available at US$695 per patient per year, or Bt24,325, undercutting Abbott's last offer by over 30 per cent. The scheme also reduced the price for a once-daily first-line Aids pill that combines the drugs tenofovir, lamivudine and efavirenz.

Clinton said the new price of US$339 per patient per year would be 45 per cent lower than the current rate available to low-income countries and 67 per cent less than the price available to many middle-income countries.

The Clinton Foundation's activities are financed by Unitaid, an organisation formed by France and 19 other nations that have earmarked a small portion of their airline tax revenues for HIV/Aids programmes in developing countries.

Unitaid will provide the foundation with more than $100 million to buy second-line medicines for 27 countries through till 2008.

"Every person living with HIV deserves access to the most effective medicines, and Unitaid aims to ensure that these are affordable for all developing countries," French Foreign Minister Philippe DousteBlazy, chairman of Unitaid's board, said in a statement.

Since starting its HIV/Aids Initiative in 2002, the Clinton Foundation has worked with 25 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia to set up Aids treatment and prevention programmes.

The foundation also provides access to lower priced Aids drugs in 65 countries. Some 650,000 people are now receiving Aids drugs purchased through the Clinton Foundation.

The Nation, Agencies