Romanian Competition Council Opens Two Abuse of Dominance Investigations Against Roche
- 08/12/2017
- Articles
The Romanian Competition Council today opened two inquiries to determine whether Roche abused an allegedly dominant position on what is referred to as the Romanian market for oncological products (see attached press release).
In one of the cases, Roche is suspected of having used marketing and promotional techniques to exclude from the market a generic version of its cancer medicine Tarceva (active substance: erlotinib). In the second case, the company is accused of having applied discriminatory prices. Some of its wholesale prices would be higher than the prices which it charges to hospitals in the context of tender procedures.
The generic exclusion case follows a pharmaceutical sector inquiry which found that generics are unable to gain a significant market share in Romania, despite being cheaper than their innovative rivals. The competition authority inspected the offices of Roche Romania and collected evidence for its investigation.
