Pharmaceutical giant makes healthcare plea

GlaxoSmithKline is urging a US Aids healthcare group not to sue it over drug pricing.

It says the courtroom is not the right place to resolve its patents dispute with the Aids Healthcare Foundation.

The US's largest non-government provider of care to Aids and HIV patients is preparing to file a suit seeking damages of up to $66m (€66.74m).

It claims that some GlaxoSmithKline patents are invalid, and says the company has abused a monopoly position in pricing the drugs.

"We do not believe that litigation is the appropriate pathway to adopt towards resolving matters such as these," a company spokesman says.

He adds that the company firmly believes in the validity of its patents, and that it has discussed pricing issues with AHF, but the talks came to nothing.

Earlier this year AHF barred GlaxoSmithKline sales representatives from its outpatient facilities in protest over the company's pricing policies in the developing world.

The company and many of its rivals have cut prices for Aids drugs in many developing countries by as much as 90%.

But activists complain that in some countries GlaxoSmithKline's drugs can be up to twice as expensive as its rivals.

AHF claims that two of its drugs - Combivir and Trizivir - should be priced very low because they are reformulations of existing Aids drugs and so have not entailed high research and development costs.