War on drugs

Health activists, HIV/Aids and consumer groups have asked the Central Administrative Court to force the government to have Abbott Laboratories fined and forced to register its lifesaving drugs here.

The company withdrew from Thailand after the government imposed compulsory licensing on its HIV/Aids drug.

Compulsory licensing is when a government allows someone else to produce a patented product without the consent of its owner. It is one of the relaxations on patent pro¬tection included in the World Trade Organisation's agreement on intellectual property.

"The court has accepted our action which asks it to order the company fined the maximum under tradecompetition law," says Aids Access Foundation director Nimitr Tienudom.

Case against Abbot

"We say Abbot has violated that law by withdrawing its lifesaving drugs from the market."

He says the action follows Abbott's withdrawal of seven drugs from sale here last year "in apparent retaliation for the previous government imposition of compulsory licensing on its Aids antiretroviral cocktail Kaletra".

The groups say the Commerce Ministry's failure to act against Abbott is actionable, too.

In April last year, consumers' foundations and several nongovernmental organisations lobbying for patients' rights complained about Abbott to the ministry's tradecompetition committee.

Nimitr claims the pharma¬ceutical firm violated competi¬tion legislation by restricting access to a medicine  available internationally. But, the min¬istry decided in December that Abbott did nothing wrong and broke no laws.