The European Fee says it has fined the Israeli generic drug maker, Teva, greater than €460m for improperly looking for to guard the patent for its a number of sclerosis drug and for disparaging a rival firm’s improvement of a competing drugs.
The European Fee mentioned the pharmaceutical agency “misused the patent system to artificially lengthen patent safety” for its blockbuster MS drug Copaxone, whose lively ingredient is glatiramer acetate.
To do this, Teva carried out a “disparagement marketing campaign” in opposition to Synthon, the one different firm with an authorised drug in Europe containing glatiramer acetate, the Fee mentioned in an announcement.
Teva “unfold data contradicted by well being authorities’ findings, looking for to sow doubt on the protection, efficacy and therapeutic equivalence of the rival product,” the EU Fee mentioned.
It added that Teva officers had focused medical doctors and teams concerned in drug pricing and reimbursement, “with the goal of slowing down or blocking its competitor’s entry” into a number of nations.
Teva set to attraction EU Fee determination
In an announcement, Teva mentioned it disagreed with the EU Fee’s determination, which it described as “primarily based on authorized theories … which are excessive, untested, and factually unsupported”. It mentioned it supposed to attraction the choice and that it had supported the MS group since 1996.
The EU Fee mentioned Teva’s actions might have prevented vital financial savings by nations throughout Europe, with different variations of the drug probably 80% cheaper than Copaxone. Teva must pay a high quality of €462.6m and chorus from comparable practices sooner or later, it mentioned.
Final 12 months, Teva was ordered to pay $225m (€207m) to settle worth fixing prices in the US associated to gross sales of a cholesterol-lowering drug.
The US Justice Division mentioned the settlement additionally required Teva to divest its enterprise making and promoting the drug pravastatin, a generic model of the brand-name drugs Pravachol.