From the Financial Times:
“A legal battle between GlaxoSmithKline and Greek wholesalers over parallel trade in drugs – which could have implications for the price of medicine - ended with a mixed result on Tuesday morning at
The European Court of Justice ruled that if a dominant company refused to meet “ordinary” orders for medicinal products, because it wanted to put a stop to parallel exports, it was breaching EU competition law.
But the judges said that it was up to individual countries’ courts to decide whether orders were “ordinary”. They would need to look at both the previous business relations between the drug company and the wholesalers concerned, and the size of the orders in relation to market needs in the country concerned.
Drug prices in
As a result, in 2000, GSK changed its Greek distribution system, and supplies to wholesalers were interrupted. The wholesalers complained that this amounted to anti-competitive conduct and an abuse of a dominant position.
In April, a senior legal adviser at the ECJ largely ruled against the company. Tuesday’s full court decision significantly qualifies that position.”
And via Bloomberg, this add:
“The court ``has confirmed that companies must be able to take reasonable and proportionate steps to protect their own commercial interests, even if they hold a dominant position and such steps must be assessed in the light of the ordinary requirements of the markets,'' London-based Glaxo said in a e-mailed statement.”
Is this the beginning of the end of pharmaceutical parallel trade in the EU? It depends. But one thing is certain, if nations such as the
No matter -- if the EU decides to act in its own best interests perhaps the next Congress can design a plan where we import cheaper drugs from ... India.
