Brussels: European Union officials raided the French unit of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, India’s biggest drugmaker, as part of a widened probe of settlements between generic drugmakers and brand-name pharmaceutical companies.
"We had a visit yesterday and we’re cooperating with the
European Commission," Anne Baille, Managing Director of
Puteaux, France-based Ranbaxy Pharmacie Generiques said by
telephone today.
The commission also conducted surprise visits in France
at Sanofi-Aventis SA, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and a
Novartis AG unit, spokespeople for the firms said yesterday.
The commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, said the
companies may have abused their dominant market positions or
engaged in "restrictive business practices."
The inspections mark the third time drugmakers’ offices
have been visited since the EU started a probe of the
pharmaceutical industry in January 2008.
The EU has focused on whether drugmakers misuse patents
and lawsuit settlements to keep less-expensive generic
medicines off the market.
The Brussels-based commission said in a report in July
that companies use a variety of techniques to delay the
introduction of generics "for as long as possible."
The spokesman of Tokyo-based Daiichi Sankyo Co., Japan’s
third-largest drugmaker having a controlling stake in Ranbaxy,
wasn’t able to immediately comment.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, October 07, 2009, 18:25