Brussels, 25/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - EU Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia announced on Wednesday 25 July that the Commission has sent a statement of objections to Danish pharma company Lundbeck and will be sending a similar official complaint in a few days' time to French pharma company Servier regarding agreements concluded with four generic competitors on citalopram, a blockbuster antidepressant produced by Lundbeck, and peridopril, a cardiovascular drug manufactured by Servier. For Lundbeck, the deals include direct payments to four competitors to stop them from making generic citalopram. Other suspicious dealings include special benefits in distribution deals to disadvantage generics and buying up generic citalopram and then destroying it. Similar complaints have been made to Merck KgaA, Generics UK, Arrow, Resolution Chemicals, Xellia Pharmaceuticals, Alpharma, A.L. Industrier and Ranbaxy, which have signed similar deals with generics manufacturers. For Servier, the generics manufacturers concerned may well be Krka d.d., Lupin Ltd, Matrix Laboratories Ltd (a subsidiary of Mylan Inc), Niche Generics Limited (a subsidiary of Unichem Laboratories Ltd) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. In both cases, the companies will have access to evidence collected by the Commission over the past three years. At the press conference, Almunia said the Commission took the fight against such price-fixing very seriously indeed. (FG/transl.fl)