EU Commission sees parallel importing as way to drive drug price

While some pharmaceutical industry representatives would like toconvince the European Commission that there are numerous reasons to prevent parallel trade in medicines, this is not the view in Brussels, European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti told a recent conference held in Brussels, Belgium, by Alliance UniChem, a leading pan-European drug wholesaler. In fact, he told delegates, the Commission views parallel importing as a suitable way of driving the markets towards more harmonious pricing across the whole of Europe.

If Dr Monti's view are confirmed, it will pretty much mean the end of the current battle started by SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) to uphold its right to practice a dual pricing system in Spain, where it charges more for products intended for export than those for the domestic market, for which prices are controlled by the government (Marketletters passim).

Dr Monti told the meeting that the Commission has never ruled formally on cooperative agreements between competing companies, noting that, so far, there have been only two formal decisions applying to Article 81 of the Treaty of Rome regarding the pharmaceutical sector, that of Sandoz (now Novartis) in 1987 and Bayer in 1996, the latter on Adalat (nifedipine).