Published 1 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2817
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2817

News

Legal tactics to delay launch of generic drugs cost Europe {euro}3bn, report says

Andrew Jack

1 Financial Times

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Drug companies are bracing themselves for the launch of a series of antitrust investigations in Europe after the European Commission published a highly critical report on industry practices.

The 426 page preliminary report by the commission’s Competition Directorate, which is to be followed by a final version next spring, highlights widespread legal tactics by drug companies to defend their patents. The commission says that such tactics have delayed the entry of cheaper generic drugs, at a cost of {euro}3bn (£2.5bn; $3.8bn) since the start of the decade.

It cites instances of companies starting litigation to hold up competing products, filing multiple patent applications for the same drug, and reaching out-of-court settlements with manufacturers of generic drugs to stop them entering the market.

In one "patent clustering" case a company filed 1300 patents for a single drug. An internal document quoted in the commission’s report said: "We identify options to obtain . . . [Full text of this article]


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