What’s In A Name? Abbott Learns The Hard Way
5 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // April 5th, 2007 // 8:17 am
Miles White probably wishes he did what Bill Weldon’s team at J&J is busy doing - snatching up Internet domain names. You may recall that J&J is registering dozens of names, such as OrthoEvraKills.com and VictimsOfSplenda.com, so people, such as lawyers, can’t say nasty things about its products.
Well, Miles probably wants this one for himself - abbottsgreed.com. But he can’t have it.
It was launched recently by several activist groups, such as Health Gap and Students For Global AIDS Campaign, which have previously criticized Abbott for the prices of its AIDS meds. This time, the groups are targeting Abbott’s refusal to sell new meds to Thailand, after the goverment issued a compulsory license to make generic copies of its Kaletra AIDS drug.
The new site contains opinions and news clips about the Thai controversy, with a particular point of view, of course. There are provocative photos, too. Meanwhile, Abbott still hasn’t posted anything on its own web site explaining its views on the mess in Thailand or its decision to withhold new meds from the country.
This is called losing the public relations war.
Abbott Labs;
Abbott’s Greed;
Students for Global AIDS Campaign;
Health GAP.
[tags]Abbott Laboratories, Compulsory Licensing, Domain Names, Kaletra, Patents, Thailand[/tags]
Jerry E.
Speaking of “public” relations, you might want a copy editor to look at the Dummies book cover graphic … or was that a deliberate double entendre?
ed
Hi Jerry,
Yes.
Thanks for writing.
ed
Pharmalyst
Yes Abbott is “greedy”; so is every other company trying to maximize its profit. Hopefully the profit motive also results in some genuine innovations…and some phony innovations to be sure. To me, what is not clear is whether Abbott is forgoing some profits by pricing the drug too high in Thailand.
http://pharmalyst.blogspot.com/2007/04/what-is-abbotts-profit-maximization.html
Perhaps one should compare prices of other expensive but necessary goods and see if Abbott is pricing this appropriately.
ed
Hi Lyst,
Good to hear from you again.
And you make a good point, although I wasn’t pointing out this particular greedy web site in order to suggest the activists are correct about pricing or access.
In this case, I was trying to point out the public relations skirmishing. Obvoiusly, Abbott has made a deliberate point of not addressing the controversy unless asked. Meanwhile, the companies opponents are staking out turf and making their voices heard in larger public arena.
Cheers
ed
Pharmalyst
Ed:
Point taken. Abbott seems to get involved in a fair bunch of PR issues(fights with Brazilian Govt, Norvir pricing etc) and they never seem to tackle the PR aspects well.
Pharmalyst