EU Levied Over $1 Billion in Fines for Anticompetitive Pharma Behavior

The EU investigated more than 100 cases of anticompetitive behavior by drugmakers between 2009 and 2017 and imposed fines of more than $1 billion, the European Commission said in a report released last week.

The anticompetitive practices included exclusionary conduct to delay generic entry into the market, price-fixing and pay-for-delay agreements. Abuse of market dominance, accounting for 45 percent of cases, was the most common misconduct identified, followed by pay-for-delay arrangements and other anti-competitive agreements at 31 percent. Agreements to restrict sales, promotion or distribution or “outright cartels,” each accounted for 17 percent of the cases.

In compiling the report, the Commission reviewed more than 80 pharma mergers since 2009 and found that nearly a quarter of them raised concerns about potential anticompetitive effects and higher prices that had to be resolved before the merger could go ahead.