Our colleagues in the EU recently reported on the European Commission imposing fines totalling €427.7 million on the French pharmaceutical company Servier and five producers of generic medicines for breaching Articles 101 and 102 TFEU through a series of deals aimed at protecting its bestselling blood pressure medicine, perindopril, from price competition by generics in the EU, by delaying the entry of generic medicines.
Read more here.
The notion of “pay for delay” remains a big issue for competition regulators across the EU, US and UK. Although there has yet to be any action taken by the ACCC on pay for delay directly, it continues to be an area to watch. The ACCC is focussed on conduct in the pharmaceuticals industry, most recently taking action against Pfizer in relation to its dealings with its customers in advance of the expiry of its patent for atorvastatin and the launch of competing genericproducts. The hearing of that case is scheduled to start on 29 September 2014.
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