4th UPDATE: EU Raids Drugmakers On Antitrust Concerns
October 06 2009 - 1:36PM
Dow Jones News
E.U. antitrust authorities Tuesday raided the offices of several
pharmaceutical firms, as the bloc intensifies its scrutiny of
efforts by brand-name drugmakers to prevent generic competitors
from bringing their products to market.
The European Commission, the E.U.'s executive arm, announced the
raids but didn't name any of the companies involved. French
drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis (SAN.FR), Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries
Ltd. (TEVA), an Israeli generic drug maker, and Sandoz, the
generics unit of Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis AG (NVS), said
their offices were raided.
A Teva spokeswoman said the inquiry is focused on the French
generic drug market.
"We believe that Teva France has conducted its business in a
responsible manner," she said.
While the commission declined to comment on the suspected
violations, it has been investigating the deals that brand-name
companies strike with their generic competitors to delay bringing
generic medicines to market. E.U. antitrust commissioner Neelie
Kroes in July raised concerns that these deals indicate the two
segments of the drug industry have agreed not to compete with each
other.
"There is something rotten" with the deals, she said. The
commission is aware of at least 200 settlement agreements between
brand-name and generic drugmakers, many to delay the entry of
generic medicines to the market, Kroes said.
The U.S. Justice Department in July said it would focus special
attention on such deals.
Generic medicines have become a major threat to brand-name
drugmakers, which have struggled in recent years to develop new
drugs as their older products lose patent protections.
The inspections announced Tuesday are among the first steps in a
commission antitrust probe, which can often take years to
complete.
Merck KGaA (MRK), Bayer AG (BAYN.XE), GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK),
UCB SA (UCB.BT) and Solvay SA (SOLB.BT) weren't among the firms
raided, spokespeople for the companies said Tuesday.
-By Matthew Dalton, Dow Jones Newswires; +32 2 741 1487;
matthew.dalton@dowjones.com
(Marietta Cauchi, Thomas Gryta, Peppi Kiviniemi, Julia Mengewein
and Mimosa Spencer contributed to this article.)