Nairobi, April 21 -- The High Court has quashed a decision by the State's Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) to cancel a pharmaceutical company's licenses for the manufacture and distribution of 40 lifesaving medicines on claims of counterfeiting, warning that the move risked disrupting access to essential medicines in Kenya.

The court faulted the regulator for acting unlawfully and procedurally unfairly in cancelling the permits of a Kenyan firm, Galaxy Pharmaceuticals, which is locked in a Sh1.4 billion dispute with a former partner from India, India's Prism Life Sciences Limited, over the sale of pharmaceutical products used in the treatment of various chronic illnesses, including heart diseases, atherosclerosis, and diabetes mellitus....