Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Reuters NewMedia - October 01, 2002
Panarat Thepgumpanat
The Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court ruled in favour of three AIDS plaintiffs -- two AIDS patients and one activist group -- and said the U.S. firm would only have the exclusive right to produce the drug, didanosine, in certain doses, allowing others to produce it in different doses.
Thai activists welcomed the court verdict which was detailed in a statement.
"This is the first court victory of HIV/AIDS patients," said Nimit Tienudom, executive director of AIDS ACCESS. "We expect this ruling will set a precedent for other AIDS advocacy groups and patients to follow."
The two Thai AIDS patients and the AIDS ACCESS Foundation said in their complaint to the court that giving Bristol-Myers Squibb exclusive rights to make the drug, known as ddI, prevented other firms producing cheaper remedies for Thai AIDS victims.
The plaintiffs told the court that Bristol-Myers's ddI currently cost 40 baht ($0.923) a pill, but the state-owned drugs firm could sell it at half that price if Bristol-Myers's rights were limited.
Bristol-Myers had argued that the AIDS foundation could not act on behalf of AIDS patients in Thailand and the patent it was holding was valid in other countries.
The defendants have 30 days to appeal to the country's Supreme Court.
Bristol-Myers officials could not be reached for comment.
Thailand has around 700,000 HIV/AIDS sufferers and sees 20,000 to 25,000 new cases of HIV infection each year.
Antiretroviral drugs have turned HIV infection into a manageable condition in the West, but such treatments reach only one in a thousand of those infected in Africa, the epicentre of the crisis, because most people there cannot afford them.
Impoverished AIDS sufferers in Asia face a similar problem.
Rights activists and AIDS patients have been fighting global pharmaceutical firms to bring down the cost of AIDS medicines, but the companies say they cannot finance research into new medicines if prices come down.
More than 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, most of them in developing nations. The United Nations estimates AIDS will kill 70 million people over the next 20 years unless rich nations step up efforts to curb the disease.
($1=43.36 Baht)
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