Teva responds ‘robustly’ to EU pay-for-delay charge

Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva “robustly” responded to the European Commission’s charge of anti-competitive behaviour at a hearing earlier this week.

In July last year the European Commission called out Teva over a pay-for-delay drug deal with competitor Cephalon.

At the time, Margrethe Vestager, commissioner in charge of competition policy, said: “In this case, our preliminary finding is that Teva and Cephalon broke EU antitrust rules by agreeing on Cephalon paying Teva to keep its cheaper generic version of Cephalon’s sleep disorder drug modafinil out of the market. It’s now up to the companies to respond to our concerns.”

Under the agreement, which according to the Commission was in breach of EU competition rules, Teva had agreed not to market a cheaper generic version of modafinil.

“Teva has responded to the statement of objections robustly, and attended the oral hearing on Tuesday, March 13,” said a spokesperson for Teva.

Cephalon owned the patents for modafinil and its manufacture and, after certain patents on the compound expired in the European Economic Area (EEA), Teva entered the UK market for a period of time with its generic.

Cephalon then sued Teva but the companies settled the litigation in 2005. Teva agreed not to sell its generic drug in the EEA until October 2012 and, in exchange, received a series of cash payments.

Teva subsequently acquired Cephalon in 2011, and the Commission opened formal proceedings in April that year.

The 2005 agreement was also subject to antitrust proceedings in the US. In May 2015, the Federal Trade Commission and Teva reached a settlement ending the antitrust litigation.

Teva’s spokesperson added: “We do not believe that Cephalon and Teva entered into any anti-competitive behaviour and we will cooperate fully with the authorities with their enquiries.”

The spokesperson went on to say that Teva “strongly disagrees” with the way the European Commission analyses patent settlements in the pharmaceutical sector.

The European Commission can penalise companies up to 10% of their global turnover for breaching EU rules.

Earlier this week, LSIPR reported that the number of ‘pay-for-delay’ patent settlements in the EU has “stabilised at a low level”.

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