Some 500 people living with HIV/Aids and activists…demonstrated outside the Bangkok office of...GlaxoSmithKline, to protest against its application for a patent on a key anti-retroviral treatment. The protesters said a patent would grant Glaxo a monopoly on the drug Combid, which forms part of the standard treatment for people with HIV/Aids in Thailand. The Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) currently manufactures an affordable generic version..."If Glaxo is granted the patent, the GPO would no longer be able to produce its generic version and the Glaxo product's price could even rise in the absence of any competition," said Wirat Purahong, chairperson of the Thai Network of People Living With HIV/Aids...After the building had been blockaded for two hours, a representative of Glaxo Thailand met the demonstrators and accepted an open letter containing the protesters' demands. The representative, however, told them it was a policy of the Glaxo headquarters in the United Kingdom - not its Bangkok office - to apply for patent protection...Responding by email to The Nation's inquiries, Glaxo said it "disputes the claims of … NGOs that Glaxo would seek to reduce access and availability of anti-retrovirals"...