Developing countries need to work together: Mongkol

Developing countries around the world should team up to try to jointly secure patents for essential drugs to allow them to produce original drugs by themselves instead using of the compulsory licensing mechanism to break patents on expensive drugs, former health minister Dr Mongkol Na Songkla said.

"If we help each other to support universities to conduct research on drugs at the primary stage the price of drugs will not be expensive. We could provide useful research to developing countries around the world to own the patent and produce drugs on their own without paying for marketing costs," Mongkol said.

"This is not the responsibility of one country but we have to do it as a network."

The former minister spoke at a threeday meeting on " Asia Pacific Consultation on FTAs and their Impact on Access to Medicinal Drugs", organised by Health Action International Asia Pacific.

He said the government and civil society should collaborate to allocate funds to support top universities to conduct research and develop essential drugs to treat orphans with diseases in developing countries. They would then own patents to produce original drugs and would not have to break trade laws. Currently, major drug companies own patents on some of the most crucial drugs discovered by state universities.

Mongkol's call follows increasing moves to use com¬pulsory licensing under the World Trade Organisation's agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which have proven has headache for both sides, partly because pharmaceutical firms have resented and contested these moves by countries such as Thailand.

WTO's international trade agreements protect intellectual property rights for makers of drugs who patent for original products and forbid others from producing such drugs until patents expire.

Mongkol said many pharmaceutical companies based in India that produce generic drugs were now suspending production as the Indian government was complying with WTO rules not to break patents on original drugs. This would make it hard for developing countries to find and import generics if they imposed compulsory licensing on drugs deemed essential and lifesav¬ing.

"To complete implementation of compulsory licensing of essential drugs under the WTO's international trade agreement we must have a resource to import generic drugs. If not it would be difficult to use this mechanism to help people to access expensive drugs," said Mongkol, who imposed compulsory licensing for HIV/Aids, heart and cancer drugs to help save tens of thousands of lives.

Samlee Jaidee, who is chairperson of the subcommittee for Selecting Essential Drugs with Access Problems under the National Health Insurance schemes, said she supported Mongkol's idea. There was a move among civil society groups in developing countries to ask governments to hold patents generated from research at universities in a bid to produce cheaper drugs, instead of relying on companies.

The Public Health Ministry is due to host a meeting of a joint committee of top Health, Commerce and Foreign ministry officials, plus others such as representatives from civic groups and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association, to find a better way to get cheap lifesaving drugs to people throughout the country.

Mongkol said the bottom line for this meeting should be for the benefit of the people, not drug companies' profits.

"The enforcement of compulsory licensing is still the key mechanism to negotiate with drug firms to reduce prices of patented drug products and help poor people to access cheap drugs," he said.