Drug company Pfizer and Microsoft have filed parallel lawsuits against website operators and spam advertisers selling illegal versions of Pfizer's Viagra.
The companies said the lawsuits followed a seven-month investigation into the identity of two website operators and those advertising them via spam emails.
Pfizer has filed suit against CanadianPharmacy and E-Pharmacy Direct, while Microsoft has filed civil actions against the spam advertisers for the websites. Microsoft has also filed three suits against spam advertisers who advertise unauthorised or counterfeit versions of Viagra on other online pharmacies under such names as Discount RX, Virtual RX and EzyDrugStore.com.
With Microsoft going after illegal spammers and Pfizer taking on online sellers of illegal medicines, the companies said they were "targeting the entire supply chain".
About a third of all prescription medicines imported illegally into the Republic are products dealing with sexual dysfunction, such as Viagra, or similar products.
In its annual report for 2003, the State's watchdog for drug safety, the Irish Medicines Board (IMB), said the problem of unauthorised importation of drugs and medicines via the internet or mail order was increasing and was a cause for concern.
The IMB report states that 171 consignments of prescription drugs which had been imported illegally via the internet or mail order into Ireland were detected by the board's inspectors or by customs officers in 2003.
Around 32 per cent of these products were indicated for sexual dysfunction. In a further 83 cases, illegal prescription drugs were found in the possession of a person entering the State.
