On 8 March 2018, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) gave an initial judgment in the appeals brought by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and a number of generic manufacturers against the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) 2016 Paroxetine decision (see here and here). As explained further below, the CAT has (in a move which perhaps goes against the prevailing zeitgeist) not reached final conclusions on the appeals, but has rather referred a number of questions to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Background

The infringements identified by the CMA in its Paroxetine decision arose out of three patent settlement agreements made in 2001 and 2002 between GSK and various generic manufacturers of paroxetine.

Paroxetine is an anti-depressant (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor “SSRI”), marketed by GSK under the brand name “Seroxat”, which during the infringement period was one of its highest selling products, accounting for £71.6 million (10% of revenue) in 2001.

The CMA’s investigation into paroxetine was the first UK case to grapple with the contentious area of patent settlement agreements which limit generic companies’ ability to bring their own product to market. The investigation was formally launched by the OFT in 2011 on the basis of information obtained by the European Commission through its pharmaceutical sector inquiry (2009).

Following a significant further period of investigation, the CMA in 2016 issued a decision fining GSK, Alpharma and Generics (UK) a total of £44.99 million for agreeing to delay the entry of generic paroxetine in breach of Chapter I and/or Article 101 TFEU. GSK received the largest penalty, being fined £37,606,275 for its parallel infringement of the Chapter II prohibition:

• The CMA found that between 2001 and 2004 GSK agreed to make payments and other value transfers of over £50 million to generic suppliers of paroxetine, this amounted to a restriction of competition by object and/or effect.
• The CMA also found that GSK’s conduct induced generic providers to delay their efforts to independently enter the UK paroxetine market, abusing its dominant position in breach of Chapter II of the Competition Act.

The CAT Judgment

The essential element of the CAT’s March 2018 judgment is the reference of five issues to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling. As things stand, the exact text of the questions has not been formulated (and will no doubt be the subject of fierce debate among the parties). However, the issues referred will relate to the following areas:

1. Potential competition: whether the existence of an interim injunction against generic manufacturers was an insurmountable barrier for entering the market.

The provisional view of the Tribunal was to find that it was not (since, for example, it could have been discharged). However, it decided to refer a question to the CJEU as the question was similar to one raised in Lundbeck’s appeal (see here). This reference raises issues not dissimilar to those at play in the recent Roche judgment of the CJEU, which considered whether potentially unlawful products could be viewed as potential competitors (see here).

2. Restriction of competition by object: when the strength of a patent is uncertain, does a transfer of value from the originator to a generic of an amount substantially greater than avoided litigation costs, under a settlement agreement in which the generic company agrees not to enter the market with its generic product and not to challenge the originator’s patent, constitute a restriction by object?

The CAT emphasised a number of points in connection with this question, including a notable recognition that (a) the uncertainty over patent strength means that a possible outcome of the litigation was that the generic challengers would be held to infringe a valid patent, and (b) an outcome of litigation which upheld the patent should not be viewed as a less competitive outcome than the situation where the patent was overturned.

A second related question was also identified, which seeks to establish whether a settlement comprising a value transfer which also provides some benefits to consumers (in the form of limited supplies of authorised generic products) should also be viewed as restrictive by object. Again, the preliminary view of the Tribunal was that such limited competitive benefits are not sufficient to draw into question the overall categorisation of the agreement as a by object infringement. If that is correct, it is necessarily a conclusion which will have to be considered in detail for any specific patent settlement agreement, and suggests that a blanket ‘by object’ approach will not be warranted.

3. Restrictions by effect: in order to show a restriction by effect is it necessary to establish that the counterfactual would have been more competitive? The Appellants argued that the CMA’s Decision did not sufficiently consider the potentially pro-competitive effects of GSK’s agreements with generic manufacturers, for example the savings to the NHS compared to the situation where no authorised generics were on the market.

The CAT also started to grapple with an issue which has been underplayed in the European decisions to date, namely the relevance of the outcome of the underlying patent litigation. If one realistic outcome of that litigation was success for GSK, the approach proposed by the CMA would be to reduce the test for identifying effects to “the probability of a possibility”. On the other hand, the CAT did not seem to acknowledge the risk of creating a situation where an agreement is considered restrictive of competition by object yet does not possess the requisite degree of probability for an effects finding that is not made out. This is surely an issue that will have to be fully played out before this, and similar cases, are finally resolved. (Damages litigation in relation to patent settlement agreements is likely to bring this issue to the fore, even if the CJEU elects to side-step the question.)

4. The correct approach to defining the relevant product market: is the relevant product market paroxetine or all SSRIs?

While the Tribunal supported the CMA’s finding of dominance on the basis of a market limited to paroxetine, it criticised its reasoning. It considered the CMA to have taken an overly narrow approach to market definition, based on the impact of generic entry on the price of paroxetine – following the Commission’s ‘natural events’ approach used in its AstraZeneca Decision (2005) (see here). However, the CAT supported the view that from the time when there were potential generic entrants, the market was limited to paroxetine and its generics. It recognised that this preliminary view, which suggests a significant change in the relevant market over time (despite no suggestion that the view of prescribing professionals was subject to a similar change) was a departure from existing case law. In the authors’ view, this approach will lead to legal uncertainty and, more importantly, inappropriately substitutes an analysis based on perceived competitive constraints for an assessment based principally on objective demand factors. As the CAT itself notes, this approach would suggest successful drugs will almost always be found to constitute a distinct market at least from the time when generic entry becomes likely. As the Tribunal notes, this approach would amount to a material change to the “IP bargain” which “might adversely affect the economic purpose of patent legislation”.

Nevertheless, in making the reference on this point, the CAT has flagged some significant issues which should weigh in the CJEU’s eventual analysis.

5. Abuse: are potential benefits to the NHS relevant to the assessment of whether GSK had abused a dominant position by entering into the agreements?

The final question on abuse is limited to an allusion back to the questions referred in relation to the object and effect of anti-competitive agreements. The central issue is again the question of whether the limited pro-competitive benefits derived from the presence of the generic companies as distributors of an authorised generic product are sufficient to undermine the main finding as anti-competitive effects.

Although the judgment is provisional in nature, there is much to absorb. We will report further when the agreed text of the questions to be referred has been published.