Thailand's new government will override international patents on three cancer drugs, new Health Minister Chaiya Sasomsap said on Monday after a month of protests against his review of the controversial policy. Chaiya, under pressure from health activists and doctors..., said declaring compulsory licences on the drugs would save Thailand more than 3 billion baht ($100 million) over the next five years... The decision is a blow to major pharmaceutical companies which had lobbied hard to reverse the CL policy launched by the previous government... The three drugs are Letrozole, a breast cancer medicine made by Novartis AG, the breast and lung cancer drug Docetaxel by Sanofi-Aventis, and Roche's Erlotinib, used for treating lung, pancreatic and ovarian cancer. A licence issued on a leukaemia drug, Glivec, was cancelled last month after its maker, Novartis, agreed to supply it free to hundreds of Thai patients. [also refers to AIDS drugs by Merck, Abbott Laboratories]