F. Hoffmann-La Roche and Novartis (Avastin - Lucentis) – ECJ Finds Concerted Efforts to Restrict Off-label Use of Medicinal Products Likely to Breach Competition Rules

• 24/01/2018
• Articles

On 23 January 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down its judgment in the Avastin – Lucentis case. The ECJ held that the coordinated dissemination of misleading safety claims with regard to a medicine’s off-label use may constitute a serious violation of the competition rules that qualifies as a “by object” infringement and therefore allows the European Commission to dispense with the requirement to show the arrangement’s anticompetitive effects.

The judgment also contains interesting observations on product market definition in the pharmaceutical sector and can be found here.

You can read our observations on the judgment in the attached note.