'GPO should help with medicines'

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'GPO should help with medicines'
THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- EIGHT HEALTH networks yesterday called for the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) yesterday tighten medicine's shortage woe to tackle the shortage of medicines in hospitals across the country, saying patients had a |crucial need for them.

Group members such as the Rural Doctors Society (RDS) Rural Pharmaceutical Club(RPC), People's Health System Movement, and Network of People Living with HIV/Aids joined hands to lodge a complaint at the GPO's office.

The GPO's board promised last month to open a new drug plant in Rangsit by early next year, and to produce some essential medicines for patients that urgently need |medicine. But there was no update on both of these plans.

Apiwat Kwangkaew, the heath group representative and president of the Network of HIV Sufferers, said the shortage of drugs was a terrible problem for some hospitals.

"Some hospitals in many provinces still need to provide 10-15 tablets of Efavirenz (EFV) to patients per time while some have to immediately purchase that medicine from private pharmaceutical companies to ensure there are reserves of medicines for patients," he said.

The group reminded the GPO of its demand for a committee to be formed to examine the role of GPO director Siwat Chawareewong, whom the group believes might not follow this board's policy.

"So far, there's not yet been a proper assessment of his performance. If he's not effective, the organisation should not make him stay or the organisation's tasks will continue to be held back," he said.

Supatra Nakapew, director of the Foundation for Aids Rights, said the shortage of medicine would increase in the future if the problem was not solved. "Some drugs, such as Clopidogrel, which used to be exported from India for every health system, under a purchase arrangement by the GPO, have now become limited in our health system. It might become deficient in the future."

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/GPO-should-help-with-medicines-30246324.html


-- The Nation 2014-10-27

[retarius]

MY goodness, if there is an industry crying out for reform this is it. Make generics and flog them around the world. Make the actives as well. It's not rocket science...god forbid hire a foreigner to tell you how to set the plant up...get someone from the US FDA to do your QA/QC compliance so you can sell in the US....

I'm a diabetic and take metformin....it costs way more here than it does in the US, and is not available as sustained release. Why are we giving profits to Sanofi Aventis?

Same with ramipril....5 mg costs a small fortune here...1200 baht per month....costs a penny a capsule at most to make.

[Scrutiny]

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Regards

[rickirs]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

MY goodness, if there is an industry crying out for reform this is it. Make generics and flog them around the world. Make the actives as well. It's not rocket science...god forbid hire a foreigner to tell you how to set the plant up...get someone from the US FDA to do your QA/QC compliance so you can sell in the US....

I'm a diabetic and take metformin....it costs way more here than it does in the US, and is not available as sustained release. Why are we giving profits to Sanofi Aventis?

Same with ramipril....5 mg costs a small fortune here...1200 baht per month....costs a penny a capsule at most to make.

Medicines are not priced according to their cost to manufacture.

They are usually licensed for manufacturing and that license will include royalty fees. Why royalty fees? Because the developers not only need to recover the immense cost of R&D but also provide their investors who put up the funds for R&D with a reasonable rate of return on their investment. That rate of return is typically driven by the risk of being able to produce a marketable medine that will sell to a large base of users. When one factors in pharmaceutical failures, lack of market, competitive products, etc., that rate of return might be in the 30%-45% range. And again that does not cover the return of capital to the investors for the cost of R&D.

[rickirs]

"medicine's shortage woe to tackle the shortage of medicines in hospitals across the country"

So much for becoming ASEAN's hub of vaccines.

[retarius]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

MY goodness, if there is an industry crying out for reform this is it. Make generics and flog them around the world. Make the actives as well. It's not rocket science...god forbid hire a foreigner to tell you how to set the plant up...get someone from the US FDA to do your QA/QC compliance so you can sell in the US....

I'm a diabetic and take metformin....it costs way more here than it does in the US, and is not available as sustained release. Why are we giving profits to Sanofi Aventis?

Same with ramipril....5 mg costs a small fortune here...1200 baht per month....costs a penny a capsule at most to make.

Medicines are not priced according to their cost to manufacture.

They are usually licensed for manufacturing and that license will include royalty fees. Why royalty fees? Because the developers not only need to recover the immense cost of R&D but also provide their investors who put up the funds for R&D with a reasonable rate of return on their investment. That rate of return is typically driven by the risk of being able to produce a marketable medine that will sell to a large base of users. When one factors in pharmaceutical failures, lack of market, competitive products, etc., that rate of return might be in the 30%-45% range. And again that does not cover the return of capital to the investors for the cost of R&D.

IF you could actually read you will see that I am referring to generics....you don't pay any royalty to anybody to manufacture generics, and that is exactly what GPO is supposed to do. Under the TRIPS ruling, GPO can ignore patents for life threatening medicines (life efivirenz) and make them locally, which big pharma are wanting to stop, so that they can market their new medicines at prices people can't afford in developing nations.

Research based pharma make their money mainly during the 20 year patent life....but I'm offering Thailand advice on how to cut their drugs budget, make some money selling generics abroad and providing better access to care. GPO could be Thailand's answer to Israel's Teva or India's Dr Reddy's...making nice profits selling abroad and suppling the local market with a broad range of cheap high quality medicines.

I worked in Big Pharma HQ in America for 30 years...I know exactly what the profitability of medicines is, at a local level and a corporate level....and I also know that they spend far more on marketing than on R&D.

Why not read up and learn about this industry and stop parroting the propaganda soundbites trotted out by the industry.