Thailand has cheapest AIDS drug cocktail

The Thailand anti-AIDS drug cocktail is set to be the cheapest in the world

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand plans to launch what it says is the world's cheapest anti-AIDS drug cocktail next month.

The first batch of 120,000 tablets of GPO-VIR, produced by the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO), will be made available at state hospitals and drugstores in April at a cost of 20 baht ($0.46) a tablet, the health ministry said in a statement on Friday.

"This is the cheapest anti-retroviral pill in the world, which will help them treat HIV/AIDS patients more effectively since they won't need to take three pills at a time," GPO Director Thongchai Tavichachart told Reuters news agency.

The drug is a combination of three anti-retroviral drugs -- Stavudine 30-40 mg, Lamivudine 150 mg and Nevirapine 200 mg -- that are usually prescribed separately to patients.

Thai AIDS sufferers normally pay about 2,400 baht a month for their doses of the three drugs, which were already produced locally. Thongchai said imported versions cost Thais about 10,000 baht a month.

Around 30 percent of Thailand's 695,000 HIV/AIDS sufferers take anti-retroviral drugs regularly and the new single pill will cut their monthly medicine cost by half to 1,200 baht.

As well as boosting Thailand's health, the single-pill treatment could help neighbouring countries, who may be able to import the cheap generic drug.

After six months of initial production, the GPO plans to expand its monthly capacity to three million tablets a month, and six million tablets a month within a year.

Thailand is the only country, after India, to produce a generic form of the cocktail drug, orginally created by three Western pharmaceutical companies, according to NewScientist.com. The three companies no longer hold any patents for the drugs in Thailand or India.