Competition enforcement led to fairer prices, innovative products — EC report

An­titrust and merg­er en­force­ment in Eu­rope has led to fair­er prices for med­i­cines and kept mar­kets com­pet­i­tive over the past sev­er­al years, ac­cord­ing to a re­port the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion pub­lished Fri­day.

The 58-page re­port, which an­a­lyzed en­force­ment ac­tions by the EC and mem­ber states’ na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion au­thor­i­ties be­tween 2018 and 2022, found that en­force­ment ac­tions ul­ti­mate­ly led to a stronger phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal mar­ket and en­hanced ac­cess to med­ica­tions. The re­port comes as US reg­u­la­tors have tak­en a clos­er look at an­ti­com­pet­i­tive prac­tices by phar­ma in re­cent years, with the FTC hav­ing a heav­ier hand in merg­ers, and law­mak­ers tak­ing a clos­er look at the mis­use of the patent sys­tem.

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