The European Commission published on Wednesday 8 April a Communication on a Temporary Framework to provide guidance on antitrust issues related to business cooperation in response to emergency situations related to the current coronavirus pandemic.
The Commission is also issuing a “comfort letter” to Medicines for Europ, formerly the European Generic Medicines Association, on a voluntary cooperation project between pharmaceutical producers to avoid critical drug shortages in hospitals.
Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of Competition Policy, said: “To avoid the risk of shortages of essential and scarce products and services because of the unprecedented surge in demand due to the pandemic, we need businesses to cooperate and do it in line with European Competition rules. So to ensure supply we will urgently provide businesses with sufficient guidance and comfort to facilitate cooperation initiatives boosting the production of products in high demand”.
The Commission has also adopted guidelines to optimise the supply and availability of medicines during the pandemic (see EUROPE 12464/1).
To avoid shortages, companies may have to coordinate production, inventory management and possibly distribution so that not all companies focus on one or a few medicines while others remain under-produced. Such coordination would, under normal circumstances, be contrary to antitrust rules. However, in the context of a pandemic, coordination of this nature can, with appropriate safeguards, bring important benefits to citizens.
The Temporary Framework is intended to provide antitrust guidance to companies willing to temporarily cooperate and coordinate their activities in order to increase production in the most effective way and optimise supply of, in particular, urgently needed hospital medicines.
See the communication: https://bit.ly/2VeDYvU (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)