Pfizer, Lipitor and the business of big Pharma

by | Mar 23, 2015 | Blog

The saga continues here in Australia where the Australian Competitor and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has logged an appeal to the Federal Court over their anti-competitive case against Pfizer.

This all stems back to early 2012 as the patent for Lipitor, a large market in Australia, was coming up to its expiry.  The conduct in question being Pfizer’s dealings with pharmacy over Lipitor and their generic atorvastatin product.  The allegations stated that Pfizer had misused its market power to engage in exclusively dealings designed to lessen competition.

We know the patent expiry for Lipitor affected pharma in all different ways around the world and now, in 2015, the issues is still current.  Stay tuned for an update on the next stage of this Federal case.

How did this issue affect you in your market?

What’s the next drug coming off-patent that you think will affect the market?

Testimonials

Having just completed the very informative API and Clinical Trail course (thank you Shankar) I was reminded of the traps we can fall into whereby we try to keep ourselves in our little boxes. At the MHRA symposium, I have heard several times comments such as:- “no, I’m not doing the GMP day as it’s not relevant to me” or “GDP? Oh, that doesn’t apply to us as we are manufacturers”. I am sure these comments were made well out of the earshot of MHRA personnel and on the face of it see… Read more
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