AEGiS-Bangkok Post: Local version of new Aids drug planned

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Local version of new Aids drug planned

Bangkok Post - November 29, 2006
Apiradee Treerutkuarkul

Thailand is planning to produce a local version of the anti-Aids drug Effavirenz to help thousands of HIV/Aids patients who are resistant to the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO)'s drug GPO-vir. GPO managing director Mongkol Jivasantikarn yesterday said the agency planned to apply for the compulsory licensing of Effavirenz in January, to enable Thailand to produce the drug locally.

This would help several thousand GPO-vir users who are becoming resistant to the drug to afford the alternative Effavirenz at a much lower cost, said Lt-Gen Mongkol.

According to the Public Health Ministry, about 5,000 GPO-vir users have become resistant to the drug so far, so they have had to switch to imported drugs.

HIV/Aids patients resistant to GPO-vir needed to take Effavirenz or Kaletra, which costs a patient about 20,000 to 24,000 baht a month, while GPO-vir users pay only 1,200 baht a month for the dose.

Lt-Gen Mongkol said the GPO-made Effavirenz would be much cheaper than the imported drug, costing a patient only 700 baht per month.

Local production of Effavirenz is due to start in June.

The agency has been working with Siriraj Hospital's faculty of medicine to conduct bioequivalence studies to ensure that the locally-made Effavirenz would have similar properties to the first-line drug.

However, he said, under the compulsory licensing requirement, the GPO is obliged to return 1% of the sales price to the US-based Bristol-Myers Squibb, the patent holder of the Effavirenz drug.

Other anti-Aids drugs the GPO expects to produce in the next two years include Indinavir, Saquinavir, ddI and Lopinavir, the GPO chief added.

Lopinavir is the second-line drug of Kaletra, which is still relatively expensive and mostly used by patients experiencing resistance to GPO-vir.

GPO deputy director Pisamorn Klinsuwan added that the first batch of 400,000 capsules of a Thai version of the anti-influenza drug oseltamivir would be produced within next January in a bid to prepare for a possible global flu pandemic.

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