The yearslong saga of the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA)’s investigation into Pfizer and Flynn Pharma has come to a head with a combined 70 million pound sterling ($83.61 million) fine. The U.K. antitrust authorities claim the companies exploited a loophole to massively hike prices.
The U.K.'s CMA said the companies de-branded epilepsy drug Epanutin to avoid regulations, leading to initial price hikes between 780% and 1,600%. Prices surged even more when Pfizer supplied the drug to Flynn, which then jacked up prices more than 2,000% higher than previously established prices. The U.K national health service (NHS) paid 2 million pounds for Epanutin in 2012, then 50 million pounds the next year, authorities said.
The companies "exploited their dominant positions to charge the NHS excessive prices and make more money for themselves—meaning patients and taxpayers lost out,” Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, said in a statement.
Earlier in this case, the agency slapped Pfizer with an 85 million pound ($108 million) fine in 2016, a move that the companies challenged. At the time, Pfizer said that the findings were “wrong in fact and law.” CMA’s prior findings that the prices were an antitrust abuse was set aside by the competition appeals tribunal, leading to the current re-investigation opening in 2020.
Pfizer does not agree with the decision, the company told Bloomberg. Flynn Pharma is sticking with the allegation that the original CMA case was “fundamentally flawed”, and that view remains unchanged in regard to the recent decision.
Pfizer isn’t CMA’s only target lately. Last year, the agency fined Advanz Pharma more than 100 million pounds ($139.6 million) for hiking the price of its thyroid disease tablets by 1,110%. Prices were raised from 20 pounds in 2009 to 248 pounds in 2017, authorities said. Before that, CMA doled out more than 260 million pounds in fines to Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK for charging “excessively high prices” for more than a decade.