[Ip-health] AIDS controversy dominates Abbott Lab's annual meeting & Students Protest Drug Policy

[Sarah Rimmington]

*1. Chicago Tribune: AIDS Controversy dominates Abbott Labs' annual meeting

2. Harvard Crimson: Students Protest Drug Policy*

1.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070427abbott,0,3375539.story?col=
l=3Dchi-business-hed

*AIDS controversy dominates Abbott Labs' annual meeting*

By Bruce Japsen
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Published April 27, 2007, 12:21 PM CDT

Abbott Laboratories won't back away from its controversial decision to
withhold drug applications in Thailand, Chief Executive Miles White told
AIDS activists at the North Chicago company's annual shareholders meeting.

White, in one his most prominent public statements since the giant
drugmaker became embroiled in a dispute with Thai officials over its
pricing of the AIDS drug known as Kaletra, reiterated the company's
determination to protect its intellectual property.

Early this year, Thailand said that it couldn't afford the price Abbott
charges for Kaletra, and disclosed plans to issue what's known as a
"compulsory license" for the drug. International trade law permits
governments to bypass pharmaceutical patent protections under certain
limited circumstances, and Thailand's threat represents a significant
challenge to Abbott's patent protections.

Abbott responded to the threat by announcing it won't register any newly
developed drugs in Thailand. That move will deprive Thailand of new
drugs just coming to market, including a form of Kaletra that -- in
contrast to the current form -- doesn't require refrigeration.

AIDS activists have condemned that action as "blackmail" and a threat to
access, given Thailand's hot climate and underdeveloped healthcare
infrastructure.

Activist groups had publicized their plans to demonstrate at Abbott's
annual meeting, held today at the company's sprawling campus in Northfield.

Stockholders greeted White with loud applause, and at various times the
crowd shouted down the protesters. Only a relative handful of activists
actually entered the hall for the stockholder meeting, but a larger
number was outside

White noted the company's strong financial performance, saying "our net
earnings rose to a new high of $4.1 billion" in 2006.

Among the protesters was Jon Ungphakorn, a former member of Thailand's
senate and a longtime AIDS activist. During the meeting's question and
answer period, Ungphakorn stepped to the microphone to deliver a
blistering broadside.

The pharmaceutical company, he said, is holding drugs "for ransom," and
making "hostages" of patients in Thailand.

"Abbott is certainly no 'Promise for Life' in Thailand," he said, in a
reference to the company's slogan.

"You're wildly mistaken," White responded, asking the challenger "Why
would we submit" the new drug for approval, if Thailand plans to make
generic forms of patented Abbott drugs anyway, he asked.

While the meeting was under way, AIDS activists were scheduled to be
staging protests at Abbott facilities around the world.

bjapsen@tribune.com


Copyright =A9 2007, Chicago Tribune


2. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=3D518559
*
*Students Protest Drug Policy**
Published On 4/27/2007 2:46:16 AM
NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
Crimson Staff Writer

A group of Harvard students travelled to the Abbott Laboratories
facility in Worcester, Mass., yesterday afternoon to protest the
pharmaceutical company=92s recent decision not to allow Thailand=92s
government to produce generic versions of its Kaletra AIDS drug.

The protest, organized by the Harvard chapter of the National Student
AIDS Coalition, was timed to coincide with the Illinois-based
pharmaceutical company=92s shareholder meeting today.

In January, Thailand issued a =93compulsory license=94 that would have
allowed companies to produce generic versions of Kaletra and Aluvia,
another AIDS drug, an action that was legal under World Trade
Organization regulations and undertaken to make drugs more accessible to
the population. Five hundred thousand people in Thailand are living with
HIV, according to a United Nations report.

Yesterday=92s protesters demanded that Abbott Laboratories immediately
re-register Kaletra, Aluvia, and six other medications it pulled from
the Thailand market, and grant other developing nations the rights to
produce generic versions of its medications at affordable prices.

=93We had to do something. Abbott is counting on activists not being
strong, that civil society is not going to make an outry,=94 said Matthew
F. Basilico =9208, the press liaison for the protest. =93Making generic
versions of these drugs available will save many more lives, and take
away a slight margin or profits. What [Abbott is] doing is childish,
petty, and awful.=94

Representatives for Abbott could not be reached for comment. But a
spokesman for the company told the AP last month that the decision not
to allow production of generic drugs was made because Thailand was
ignoring patent laws.

=93Thailand has revoked the patent on our medicine, ignoring the patent
system. Under these circumstances, we have elected not to introduce new
medicines there,=94 Dirk Van Eeden, public affairs director of Abbott
International, told the Associated Press (AP).

Wearing shirts reading =93Worldwide Boycott Abbott=94 and =93Our labs, our
drugs, our responsibility,=94 the group engaged in chants such as =93Hey
Abbott, get off it, people over profit,=94 and shaking symbolic pill
bottles with pennies inside.

The initial plan for yesterday=92s protest=97which featured 22 Harvard
students along with nearly 50 other people, including students from
University of Massachusetts Medical School and Clark University Medical
School=97was to march up to the building chanting, to listen to several
addresses by speakers, and then to send a delegation of people inside to
fill a mock prescription for Kaletra for the people of Thailand, which
was presumably going to be denied, according to Luke M. Messac =9208.

However, the protestors were denied entrance into the facility by
security guards. At that point, the decision was made to hold the rest
of the protest in front of the sign at the entrance to facility grounds.

=93What Abbott is doing is not only a human rights violation, but a crime
under Thai law,=94 said Brook K. Baker, a Northeastern University Law
professor, in a speech yesterday. =93What [Thailand has] done is perfectly
legal under World Trade Organization regulations, and yet Abbott is
refusing the release the patent.=94

After speeches, the protest culminated in a die-in, where the =93denied
prescription=94 was carried past the protestors, who fell to the ground,
pretending to have died.

Protests similar to the one in Worcester also took place yesterday in
Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Austin, Texas, Salem, Ore., Chapel
Hill, N.C., and other cities throughout the country.

=97Staff writer Yelena S. Mironova can be reached at mironova@fas.harvard.e=
du.



--
Sarah Rimmington
Project Attorney
Essential Action, Access to Medicines Project
Washington, DC
Office: (202) 387-8030 x34
Mobile: (202) 422-2687
www.essentialaction.org/access




--
Sarah Rimmington
Project Attorney
Essential Action, Access to Medicines Project
Washington, DC
Office: (202) 387-8030 x34
Mobile: (202) 422-2687
www.essentialaction.org/access