Pfizer sues Philippines over 200 pills
Following a bid to lower the cost of medicine, the Philippine government has run into trouble with pharma manufacturer Pfizer.
IPWatch has an article to give you all the gory details.
There’s a medication against high blood pressure. In the Philippines, it costs a lot; next door in Indonesia and Thailand, it’s available a lot more cheaply.
Since the patent is due to expire next year, the Philippine government has ordered some 200 pills of the stuff, so its drug regulators can look at it. This way, the med should get the go-ahead as soon as the patent has run out.
Pfizer, the company holding the patent, has now sued the government of the Philippines for violation of international patent regulations – although the product in question has never even been near a market in the country.
This is probably a bid to gain a few more months of monopoly profits in the Philippines, when the patent has run out, but the regulators are still working on the approval. Pfizer must need the money to pay their CEO, who just got a substantial wage hike.
And for good measure, there are rumors that Pfizer used their advertising leverage to spin newspaper coverage of the issue.