Pay-for-delay focus on steroids

07.03.2017

At the end of last week, the CMA sent a formal statement of objections to Actavis UK and Concordia alleging that they had entered into illegal ‘pay-for-delay’ patent settlement agreements.

For a number of years Actavis was the sole supplier of hydrocortisone tablets used to treat conditions such as Addison’s disease that result in insufficient amounts of natural steroid hormones. Concordia was the first potential competitor to obtain a market authorisation for a generic version of the drug. The CMA alleges that Actavis incentivised Concordia not to enter the market with its generic version of the drug by agreeing a fixed supply of its drug to Concordia at a very low price for resale to customers in the UK. As a result Actavis remained the sole supplier of the drug for most of the duration of the agreements (January 2013 to June 2016), during which time the cost of the drug to the NHS rose substantially from £49 to £88 per pack.

The CMA has provisionally found that the pharma companies have breached competition law by entering into anti-competitive agreements. It has also provisionally found that Actavis abused its dominant position by inducing Concordia to delay its independent entry into the market. This case is separate from the CMA’s other continuing investigation into Actavis UK, which it announced at the end of last year. That investigation is looking at whether Actavis UK has abused a dominant position by charging excessive prices to the NHS for the drug following a 12,000% price rise over the course of several years. A substantial portion of that price rise took place in the period before the start of the agreements in issue in this investigation.

This latest development comes amidst a number of appeals regarding the application of competition law to pay-for-delay patent settlement agreements in the pharma sector. In particular, the General Court of the EU recently upheld the European Commission’s decision fining Lundbeck and a number of generic companies in relation to patent settlement agreements (see here and here). That decision is now on appeal to the EU Court of Justice – the grounds of appeal are available here. Separately, the CAT is currently hearing the appeal of the CMA’s infringement decision against GSK and a number of generic companies for pay-for-delay agreements (see here and here) – this hearing is listed for five weeks, continuing until the end of this month.

In both of these appeals a key issue is whether the competition authorities applied the correct test in finding that the pay-for-delay agreements restricted competition ‘by object’, meaning that the effects of the agreements did not need to be considered. The appellants argue that, following the EU Court of Justice’s decision in Cartes Bancaires, ‘by object’ restrictions should be interpreted restrictively. The Lundbeck appeal to the EU Court of Justice also raises the critical issue of how the General Court dealt with the existence of Lundbeck’s patents. With this in mind, we will be keeping a close eye on the CMA’s investigation into Actavis/Concordia, particularly the legal basis for any final finding of infringement…