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| Edited By: |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 29, 2018, 06:16 AM IST
The European Commission is again sending out strong feelers to the so-called Big Pharma companies against pursuing measures to extend monopoly and delay market entry of the low-cost generics.
Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Competition Policy, in an address to the European Parliament’s committee on economic and monetary affairs this week, warned pharma giants of new antitrust investigations in the coming months.
Innovator companies have been using several instruments to extend the commercial life of their drugs. These include tactics like claiming patents for new forms of known molecules and influencing African countries to brand generics as counterfeits, etc.
A few months ago, Kroes had called for stricter regulation on Big Pharma and warned of potential steep fines if they continued with their efforts to block cheaper generics even as the world battles rising healthcare costs and a global economic slowdown.
A New-Delhi-based healthcare expert, working in the area of access to medicines, said, “Any move to encourage generics is definitely great news for us. Big Pharma has been using several tactics to delay generics, making patients wait for months even after the expiry of patents to get generics.”
The commission inquiry into alleged antitrust practices began in January 2008 and was aimed at finding out why generic entry was getting delayed.
Later, in its ‘Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry Report’, the European Commission took note of ‘evergreening’, a technique used to extend market monopoly of a patented product by bringing out frivolous changes and seeking patents on them.
India is likely to benefit from the stern warnings of the Commission as it is a key exporter of generics, with drugs worth Rs 35,402 crore being sold overseas between April 2008 and February 2009, as per data by the Pharmaceutical Export Promotion council.
