Biography
Mr. Chalermsak Kittitrakul started his career related to intellectual property (IP) and access to medicines when he worked with an international NGO, Oxfam Great Britain, in 2003. It had an aim to overcome inaccessibility to affordable anti-retroviral medicines due to the IP barriers. He joined the Thai civil society’s policy advocacy to oppose negotiations of the Free Trade Agreements proposed by the USA and the EU, which proposed IP provisions more stringent than the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). In addition, he worked with academics and civic groups to encourage the Thai government to implement the Government Use License to promote access to lifesaving drugs.
Since 2013 he has worked with AIDS Access Foundation, as Coordinator for Access to Medicines Campaign, and continues monitoring policies affecting access to medicines, including negotiations of on-going Free Trade Agreements (e.g. the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), and the Free Trade Agreement between Thailand and the European Union). In last 5 years, he has been involved in the civil society’s policy-advocacy movement to promote access to hepatitis C direct acting anti-retrovirals (HCV DAAs) by filling patent opposition against unmeritted patent applications for those drugs and having policy dialogues with the relevant government health agencies to including HCV DAAs in the health benefit packages of the national health insurance schemes.
Biography
Mr. Chalermsak Kittitrakul started his career related to intellectual property (IP) and access to medicines when he worked with an international NGO, Oxfam Great Britain, in 2003. It had an aim to overcome inaccessibility to affordable anti-retroviral medicines due to the IP barriers. He joined the Thai civil society’s policy advocacy to oppose negotiations of the Free Trade Agreements proposed by the USA and the EU, which proposed IP provisions more stringent than the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). In addition, he worked with academics and civic groups to encourage the Thai government to implement the Government Use License to promote access to lifesaving drugs.
Since 2013 he has worked with AIDS Access Foundation, as Coordinator for Access to Medicines Campaign, and continues monitoring policies affecting access to medicines, including negotiations of on-going Free Trade Agreements (e.g. the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), and the Free Trade Agreement between Thailand and the European Union). In last 5 years, he has been involved in the civil society’s policy-advocacy movement to promote access to hepatitis C direct acting anti-retrovirals (HCV DAAs) by filling patent opposition against unmeritted patent applications for those drugs and having policy dialogues with the relevant government health agencies to including HCV DAAs in the health benefit packages of the national health insurance schemes.