EC on Pharmaceuticals
Today, the European Commission published its preliminary report on the competition inquiry into the pharmaceutical sector. The New York Times, which misleading headlines its article “E.U. Accuses Drug Makers of Gouging Consumers,” reports:
The European Union accused drug companies on Friday of adding billions of dollars to health care costs by delaying or blocking the sale of less expensive generic medicines.One common tactic, said Neelie Kroes, the European competition commissioner, was for drug companies to amass patents to protect active ingredients in the medicines — in one case, 1,300 patents for a single drug. Another tactic, she said, was for pharmaceutical companies to sue the makers of generic drugs for ostensible patent violations, which tended to delay the availability of the lower-cost products for years.
Hyperbole aside, as the report itself states, it “does not seek … to each any conclusion as to whether certain practices described in the report infringe EC Competition law.”
More to come, but until then, check out the preliminary report and its executive summary; also online are several fact sheets, a press release and Commissioner Kroes’ comments.
RSS Feed
November 30th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
“Between Patents Protection Vs Competition Regulation : The Anti-competitive Competition” Jeong Chun Phuoc-29.11.2008
The patents systems and laws were enacted much earlier compared to the new kids on the block-competition laws and regulations. If that is the case, the philosophy and rights guarantee by patents law should be observed by competition laws advocates and should not be subjected to criticisms. Apparently it appears that the patents law is working effectively to propagate those rights.
However, on second thought, it may not seems to be so. Can competition laws be utilised to destabilise the rights under the patents systems/laws ? It just doesn’t look right. Or does it ?
But there should notbe any conflict at all taking into account the idealistic and noble objectives behind the whole purposes that both strive to protect and uphold.
Although, that is what both of them ought to be. It is almost impossible to say that one of them is anti-competitive simply because the ultimate objective is to promote competitiveness.
……………………… Jeong Chun Phuoc Lecturer-in-Law Jeongphu@yahoo.com
November 30th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
“The Anti-competitive Competition” (30.11.2008)
“The Anti-competitive Competition” enunciated by Jeong is the unintended conflict between two competing force that have similarly shared core value if, not the same, ultruism. In such a scenario, there is an immediate need to take harmonisation effort to resolve seemingly contradicting value and norms in the two competitive ‘Allies’ as against anti-competitive ‘Axis’.
……………………… Jeong Chun Phuoc jeongphu@yahoo.com