Glaxo says Abbott improperly hiked price of HIV drug

Abbott Laboratories improperly hiked the price of one drug to help it preserve sales growth of one of its other HIV blockbusters, an attorney for GlaxoSmithKline told a jury. Lawyers for the two pharmaceutical companies made closing arguments on Thursday in a case in which Abbott is accused by GlaxoSmithKline of anti-competitive behavior regarding the drugs Norvir and Kaletra.

But an Abbott attorney responded that the company raised the price of Norvir for one reason: to make more money on that drug, and not any other. Norvir plays a key role in Aida-fighting cocktails because it can boost the effectiveness of other drugs. Glaxo accuses Abbott of raising Norvir's price by 400 per cent in 2003, as part of an effort to harm competitors whose drugs were dependent on being used in combination with Norvir. The case has been in trial for the past few weeks in an Oakland, California federal court. On Thursday, Glaxo attorney Brian Hennigan said that if more patients used Norvir, then fewer would use Kaletra, leading to the Norvir price hike.