2
Oct 19
Excessive pricing abuses in the pharmaceuticals sector: complying with a cease-and-desist order. The Italian case of Aspen v AGCM
On 29 September 2016, the Italian Competition Authority (the AGCM or ICA) fined the Aspen Group (Aspen) €5m for a violation of article 102(a) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
8
Jun 19
The EU Court of Justice holds that colluding to disseminate information constitute a restriction of competition “by object” (Roche / Novartis)
On January 23rd, 2018, the ECJ delivered its preliminary ruling on the Roche/Novartis v. Commission case (C-179/16), concerning the compatibility of an agreement entered into between Roche and Novartis with Article 101 TFEU.
9
Apr 19
EU General Court provides guidance to assess whether patent settlements between originator and generics infringe antitrust law (Servier)
On 12 December 2018 the General Court of the EU (“GC”) has passed a set of parallel judgments (we will referrer to Case T-691/14,Servier and Others v. Commission and Case T-684/144,Krka v. Commission) on the incompatibility with Article 101 TFEU of a number of settlement agreements in patent disputes between Servier, which is the originator of Perindopril (a drug primarily intended for the treatment of hypertension and heart failure), and five manufacturers of that drug’s generic versions.
4
Sep 17
The European Commission keeps targeting certain patent settlements between pharma companies as anticompetitive agreements: Cephalon and Teva formally accused of “pay-for-delay” in relation to a settlement the parties concluded in 2005
On July 17, 2017 Margrethe Vestagher, the head of antitrust at the European Commission (“Commission”), announced that its services sent a “statement of objections”[1] to the US-based originator company Cephalon Inc (Cephalon) and the Israeli generic company Teva Pharmaceutical Industry Ltd (Teva), accusing the two firms of infringing Article 101 of the TFEU (which prohibits anticompetitive agreements between independent undertakings) when they entered into a patent settlement agreement that, allegedly, had the objective of delaying the marketing in the EEA of a generic version of modafinil – a blockbuster drug for sleep disorders – despite the relevant patents had expired.
