On Friday 26 January, the European Commission published a report on the implementation by the Commission and the national competition authorities of the European competition rules for the pharmaceutical sector between 2018 and 2022. According to the Commission, this work has helped to set fairer prices for medicines.
The Commission has adopted 26 decisions relating to anti-competitive practices in the sector, imposed fines totalling more than €780 million and launched investigations into 70 other cases.
These actions have blocked or punished anti-competitive behaviour in the pharmaceuticals sector, such as the abusive use of the patent system or abusive recourse to extend exclusivity, the denigration of competing products to protect the sales of the dominant company or payment agreements aimed at delaying the market entry of medicines.
These actions also targeted excessive pricing for medicines for which the patents had expired.
The Commission also points out that it has examined more than 30 mergers in the pharmaceutical sector and concluded that five cases were problematic. These problematic concentrations could have led to higher prices, uncompetitive markets, restricted consumer choice and hampered drug research and development (R&D).
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/alq (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)