Top EU court rules on drug supplies

Big pharmaceutical companies will have to tread very carefully if they try to limit supplies to low-cost markets in Europe in order to prevent their drugs being exported on to higher-cost countries, the European Court of Justice said in an important ruling made on the 16 September 2008. The Court said that if a dominant company refused to meet 'ordinary' orders for medicinal products in order to stop 'parallel exports', it was breaching EU competition law.

European Commission: MEMO/08/567: Antitrust: Commission welcomes Court decision on parallel trade in the pharmaceutical sector http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/567&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

EAEPC: Press Release, 16.9.08: EAEPC welcomes http://www.eaepc.org/news_and_press/news.php?n=3&id=380

European Court of Justice: Press Release, No.65, 2008 http://curia.europa.eu/en/actu/communiques/cp08/aff/cp080065en.pdf

GSK: Media Centre http://www.gsk.com/media/index.htm

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