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15 July 2021Europe

CMA fines drugmakers £260m for 10,000% price hike

The UK’s  Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has imposed fines of £260 million on drug companies for raising the price of life-saving hydrocortisone tablets by 10,000%.

A CMA investigation found that Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK (now known as Accord) charged the National Health Service (NHS) “excessively high prices for hydrocortisone tablets for almost a decade”.

Announcing the decision today, July 15, CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli described the price hike as among the “most serious abuses we have uncovered in recent years”.

“The actions of these firms cost the NHS—and therefore taxpayers—hundreds of millions of pounds,” Coscelli added.

Auden Mckenzie (bought by Actavis in 2015 for £306 million) also paid competitors Advanz Pharma and Waymade to stay out of the market for hydrocortisone tablets, to ensure it could continue raising prices as the sole provider, the CMA found.

“Auden Mckenzie’s decision to raise prices for de-branded drugs meant that the NHS had no choice but to pay huge sums of taxpayers’ money for life-saving medicines. In practice, the NHS was at one point being charged over £80 for a single pack of tablets that had previously cost less than £1,” Coscelli said.

The CMA chief executive added: “These were egregious breaches of the law that artificially inflated the costs faced by the NHS, reducing the money available for patient care. Our fine serves as a warning to any other drug firm planning to exploit the NHS.”

A total of 13 companies were named as liable for the misconduct. The CMA fined Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK £221.1 million, split between current and former parent companies. These include Allergan, which is liable for more than £109 million.

The CMA fined Advanz, and former parent company Cinven, a total of £43 million “for their part in the collusion”. Waymade was ordered to pay £2.5 million.

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More on this story

Big Pharma
24 May 2019   Four pharmaceutical companies allegedly agreed not to compete for the supply of an anti-nausea tablet to the National Health Service, according to objections filed by the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
Big Pharma
4 March 2019   The UK Competition and Markets Authority has provisionally found that pharmaceutical companies Auden Mckenzie and Waymade engaged in anti-competitive behaviour relating to hydrocortisone tablets.

More on this story

Big Pharma
24 May 2019   Four pharmaceutical companies allegedly agreed not to compete for the supply of an anti-nausea tablet to the National Health Service, according to objections filed by the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
Big Pharma
4 March 2019   The UK Competition and Markets Authority has provisionally found that pharmaceutical companies Auden Mckenzie and Waymade engaged in anti-competitive behaviour relating to hydrocortisone tablets.