In December 2003, Abbott Labs raised the price of its Norvir AIDS drug, which is commonly used in HIV drug cocktails, by 400 percent, creating a firestorm in the AIDS community. The mark-up prompted the Service Employees International Union Health & Welfare Fund to file a class-action lawsuit the next year that alleges the price hike violated antitrust laws.

For those unfamiliar with this episode, the maneuver caused a good bit of outrage - there were shareholder resolutions, protests at Abbott headquarters, a boycott by hundreds of docs, Attorney General investigations, and numerous newspaper editorials criticizing the price increase, as the Prescription Access Litigation project reminds us. You can read some background in this story.

Now, Abbott is asking a federal court to seal numerous documents, a fairly standard maneuver. The usual reasons are given: the drugmaker doesn’t want to disclose certain “strategic thinking and views related to pricing, public relations, marketing, research and development, market positioning, promotional activities, market segmentation, strategic brainstorming, long-range planning, sales, and lifecycle management of its pharmaceutical products.”

But another reason is cited, and this one is a thigh slapper: “Public dissemination of this information could substantially harm Abbott’s good will, standing, and relationships that it has created with the HIV/AIDS community.” We enjoy reading a good brief filled with hubris and hyperbole as much as the next person, but good will and standing? This from a company that raised the price of a needed drug by 400 percent? This from a company that threatened to withhold all new meds from Thailand after Bangkok issued a compulsory license for its Kaletra AIDS pill?

If Abbott really wants to develop good will and standing with people who may die from their illness, the drugmaker might consider the impact on its reputation by raising prices sky-high and threatening to withhold drugs from sick people. And Abbott ceo Miles White, general counsel Laura Schumacher and their lawyers at Winston & Strawn should understand that such pronouncements are, in fact, disingenuous and their decisions about pricing threaten to do exactly what they claim they don’t want to see happen - harm what’s left of Abbott’s good will, standing and relationships in the AIDS community.