Following the recent trend for the European Commission to spring surprise raids on pharmaceutical companies, Edward Miller, Partner in the Competition Team at international law firm Reed Smith comments:
 
"Yesterday's raids on Sanofi Aventis and others follow on the heels of the completion of the Commission's sector enquiry into pharmaceuticals last summer.  A likely subject of the Commission's investigations is agreements with generic companies aimed at buying off challenges to the pharma companies' patents and delaying market entry of competing generic products.  Such settlement agreements have been widely litigated in the US with varying results.
 
"The Commission's campaign in favour of removing perceived obstacles to generic entry runs alongside its campaign to protect and promote parallel trade in pharmaceuticals across EU frontiers.  This latter effort received a slap in the face from the European Court yesterday when the Court sent back to the Commission a case involving a dual pricing system operated in Spain by GSK.  The Commission had ruled the dual pricing to be illegal back in 2001 and has been told by the Court that it must consider the matter again because it did not properly examine GSK's arguments in favour of the scheme."

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Notes to editors

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