Thailand’s Solution to Corrupt Big-Pharma

– Thailand’s Government Pharmaceutical Organization or GPO is a state enterprise focused on improving healthcare, making it accessible to the entire Thai population (and beyond), by researching and developing healthcare solutions, manufacturing and distributing it, and by doing so, controlling market prices;

– The Thai GPO makes money each year and is still able to make healthcare products accessible to the Thai population for many times cheaper than imported alternatives, particularly from Western pharmaceutical corporations;

– The US government has long attacked Thailand for refusing to allow Western pharmaceutical giants full and unregulated access to Thai markets and especially for a practice called “compulsory licensing” with which the Thai government allows local manufacturers to produce essential medications at drastically reduced prices without the consent of patent holders;

– HIV-AIDS medications in particularly are made accessible to the Thai public through compulsory licensing for many times cheaper than imported alternatives;

– Thailand’s GPO creates a resilient network of manufacturing, storage, and distribution points in Thailand for everyday healthcare needs as well as for emergencies;

– The existence and success of Thailand’s GPO provides us a clear picture of just how corrupt Western pharmaceutical corporations are, the complicity of the US government in this corruption, and that there are solutions to confronting and overcoming attempts by these corporations to prey on an entire society;

References:

Thailand’s Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO) – Homepage (Thai):
https://www.gpo.or.th/

Bloomberg Business – Company Overview of The Government Pharmaceutical Organization (archived 2016):
https://web.archive.org/web/201602051…

Reuters – U.S. chides Thailand for overriding drug patents (2007):
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-us…

Reuters – Merck cuts price on AIDS drug Efavirenz (2007):
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSB…

Intellectual Property Watch – Drug Company Reacts To Thai License; Government Ready To Talk (2007):
https://www.ip-watch.org/2007/02/16/d…

Bangkok Post – Thailand gets nod to make HIV/AIDS drug (2018):
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/…