European Commission confirms unannounced inspections in pharmaceutical sector

The European Commission  has confirmed that, on November 30, Commission officials carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of a limited number of companies active in the pharmaceutical sector in several European Union member states.

The Commission said it has reason to believe that the companies concerned may have acted individually or jointly, notably to delay generic entry for a particular medicine. If confirmed, this could be a potential violation of EU antitrust rules that prohibit restrictive business practices and/or the abuse of a dominant market position (Articles 101 and 102 of the EU Treaty), it said, without identifying the drugmakers concerned.

The Commission has previously launched what were described as “dawn raids” on a number of drugmakers since 2007, following a sector-wide inquiry which revealed problems in the speed generic drugs come to the market after patents have expired. Such practices are claimed to have cost health care providers about 3 billion euros ($4.5 billion) between 2007 and 2008 (The Pharma Letter December 10, 2009)). The then outgoing EU Competition Commissioner Nellie Kroes, who had been strongly involved in these actions, defended her unit’s previous dawn raids on drugmakers, as part of a crackdown on transparency and competition, and warned these would continue