Anticompetitive practices in the pharmaceutical sector: An overview of EU and national case law

For those following the headlines in the pharmaceutical sector, you will be well aware that the competition authorities in Europe are aggressively prosecuting companies for practices that restrict entry by generic suppliers. Headline cases in the last year include the European Commission’s Lundbeck decision imposing fines of over €140 million for reverse-payment patent settlements, and the French competition authority’s Sanofi-Aventis decision imposing fines of over €40 million for an alleged denigration campaign aimed at limiting generic substitution. Beyond these headline cases on generic entry, the competition authorities are prosecuting cases for a wide range of other competition infringements in the pharmaceutical sector. Indeed, over the past ten years, the European Commission and