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Different Facets of Competition in the Pharmaceutical Sector: Preliminary Findings of the European Commission’s Sector Inquiry into Pharmaceuticals

  • Varia – Ethics
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Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis Aims and scope

Abstract

The pharmaceutical sector is a part of today’s economy in which the relationship between patents and competition has been receiving increasing attention. The European Commission’s inquiry into this sector adds to the ongoing debate. Its Preliminary Report, published in November 2008, explains and quantifies a number of practices adopted by individual companies operating in the sector. The Report focuses on two strands of interplay between pharmaceutical companies. The first focus is on competition between originator and generic companies and the second relates to competition among originators themselves. The Report’s observations on the former provide us with some important insights into the potential ways of raising barriers to the timely entry of cheaper, off-patent products, while scrutiny of the latter adds to our understanding of the current rate of introducing new innovative products into the market. The study is completed by a number of observations on the sector’s regulatory framework. The presentation below follows the order of findings described in the Report.

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Notes

  1. Council Regulation 1/2003 is the main document setting out procedures for the enforcement of the EC competition rules (Article 81 and Article 82 of the EC Treaty).

  2. All the quotes presented in the Preliminary Report are based on the documents gathered in the course of the Commission’s sector inquiry.

  3. For the graphs see Figures 47–51 in the Preliminary Report, pp. 146–149.

  4. In this context it is also interesting to follow the ongoing debate on the same issue in the US. Federal Trade Commission, whose chairman, John Leibowitz, recently declared that the FTC will continue to focus its enforcement efforts on stopping so-called “pay-for-delay” agreements that keep cheaper generic drugs off the market. He also supported a legislative solution in the form of a bill to ban “reverse payments” to generic makers.

  5. See Figure 131 in the Preliminary Report, p. 317.

  6. Divisional application is a type of patent application which contains matter from a previously filed parent application but is procedurally treated independently.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Commission, DG COMP, Pharmaceuticals Sector Inquiry Task Force, J-70 05/06, Rue Joseph II/Jozef II-straat 70, 1000, Brussels, Belgium

    Filip Borkowski

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  1. Filip Borkowski
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Correspondence to Filip Borkowski.

Additional information

This article is based on the Preliminary Report of the European Commission’s inquiry into the pharmaceutical sector and on the public presentation of said report which took place on November 28, 2008, in Brussels. However, the views presented herein by the author may not under any circumstances be regarded as an official position of the European Commission.

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Borkowski, F. Different Facets of Competition in the Pharmaceutical Sector: Preliminary Findings of the European Commission’s Sector Inquiry into Pharmaceuticals. Arch. Immunol. Ther. Exp. 58, 1–5 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00005-009-0059-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00005-009-0059-0

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