At the end of last month, Commissioner Vestager gave a speech at the Chillin’ Competition Conference. The focus: how competition law can protect consumers from anti-competitive behaviours. The Commissioner gave examples of situations in which intervention could be justified, two of which are of particular interest in the competition/IP sphere – pharmaceutical goods and Standard Essential Patents (‘SEPs’).

Pharmaceutical goods

Commissioner Vestager noted that people’s health often relies on a drug sold by only one company. This can be because the company has a patent, but may also simply be because no other companies are interested in coming to the market due to low levels of demand. This isn’t a problem in itself if prices stay at a reasonable level but if prices go up, the Commission suggested it may warrant action by the competition authorities.

This could not be more topical – just today the Competition and Markets Authority’s (‘CMA’) has taken a decision in the Pfizer/Flynn case, which relates to excessive pricing of an anti-epilepsy drug previously branded as Epanutin (we reported previously on this investigation here). We’ll be providing a more detailed update on the CMA’s decision soon but in the meantime, our readers will be interested to know that both Pfizer and Flynn Pharma have already announced that they intend to appeal.

The Pfizer/Flynn case follows the CMA’s recently launched investigation into excessive pricing in the pharmaceutical sector in the UK. Concordia International announced that it was in talks with the CMA about this. However, the investigation is still at the information gathering stage, with a decision on whether or not to proceed expected in February of next year.

An article published in the Times last week suggested that certain generics drugs continue to be subject to significant price increases – the only manufacturer of lithium carbonate tablets is reported to have raised the price of its product by £39 in the last month, and from £3.22 to £87 over the last year.

Similarly, the Italian Competition Authority recently investigated Aspen, a supplier of cancer drugs to the Italian Medicines Agency, and in October 2016 fined it over €5 million for increasing the price of its cancer drugs by up to 1500% (see here for our report on this).

Pharmaceutical investigations continue outside of the EU as well. Last month Bloomberg reported that the first charges in the US DOJ’s antitrust investigation into collusion over generic price increases investigation (spanning over two dozen companies) are expected by the end of the year.

The prevalence of investigations relating to pricing regulation in the pharmaceutical sector represents a major change in policy from the days when competition authorities were wary of acting as price regulators. Perhaps, as is evidenced by Vestager’s recent speech, this is largely due to a renewed focus on consumer interests. But it is far from clear that it is sensible policy for the competition authorities to have to intervene in cases which arguably result from regulatory failures.

SEPs

In her speech, Commissioner Vestager also suggested that in some situations, phone makers may be forced to accept whatever terms they are presented with, regardless of whether these are actually FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory). This is particularly problematic where this takes place under threat of an injunction, and can mean that they end up paying unjustified royalties, with customers also paying more as a result. While FRAND disputes have been around for many years, the Commissioner emphasised that this remains a topical issue – with 5G and the Internet of Things, more and more products will be connected with each other; innovation is increasingly important and restrictive practices could stifle development.

The issue of whether offers are FRAND has a reflection closer to home in the UK at the moment. This week marks the closing submissions in the Unwired Planet v Huawei FRAND trial, which looks set to become the first EU case to determine what a FRAND offer is. A judgment in this case is likely to be handed down in the first few months of 2017…