European regulator charges Teva, Lupin and Unichem for blocking perindopril

The European Union antitrust regulator today charged Israel's Teva Pharmaceuticals, India's Lupin and Unichem Laboratories and three other drug companies for blocking the entry of a generic drug into the European market.

Apart from Teva and Lupin, the European Commission (EC) has charged French drug company Servier Laboratories, US-based Mylan Laboratories and Slovenia-based Krka, d.d., Novo Mesto for blocking the entry of generic hypertension drug perindopril into the market.

"At this stage, the (European) Commission takes the view that the patent settlement agreements concluded by Servier with Niche/Unichem, Matrix (today Mylan Laboratories Limited), Teva, Krka and Lupin, as well as Servier's acquisition of key competing technologies were aimed at delaying or preventing the market entry of cheap generic versions of perindopril, in violation of EU antitrust rules," the Brussels-based regulator said in a statement.

Generic drugs are cheaper than branded medicines and cost around 40 per cent less than two years after they enter the market.

The EC said that Servier and the four other generic drug makers entered into agreements, which may have hindered the entry of generic perindopril into markets in the EU.

The 27-member EU regulator alleges that in exchange for payments by Servier, the generic companies agreed not to enter the market with their cheaper generic products and not to further challenge the validity of the patents that protected Servier's more expensive medicine.

In addition, the EC said that Servier may have implemented a comprehensive strategy to prevent market entry of cheaper generic versions of perindopril, when Servier's perindopril was about to reach the end of its patent protection.
 
Among the practices used by Servier were patent acquisitions that could potentially shut out competitors from the market and patent settlements with other companies that included reverse payments.

''Such practices, if established, would be likely to cause significant consumer harm as national health services or insurance schemes are then forced to continue paying for the more expensive patent protected versions of a medicine when, without such practices, cheaper generic medicines would have been available earlier,'' EC said in its statement.