Roche-Novartis cartel: Tuscany will ask for 43 million euros in damages

Toscana News Information agency of the Regional Council

Avastin-Lucentis case, Rossi: "Legal action by the Region for compensation of 43 million"

Written by Lucia Zambelli, Wednesday 17 July 2019 at 14:07

FLORENCE - The Tuscany Region will take civil legal action against the pharmaceutical companies Roche and Novartis, to obtain compensation of over 43 million, which has already been requested in a formal notice sent to the two companies last February, for the drug affair Avastin and Lucentis, for the treatment of an eye disease, age-related macular degeneration. President Enrico Rossi announced it this morning, at the opening of the usual weekly briefing with journalists. The decision of the Region, following two sentences of the Council of State, which confirm the fine of over 180 million imposed by the Antitrust on the two companies.

The story dates back to February 2014, when the AGCM (Authority for competition and the market) had resolved that the companies Roche and Novartis had put in place an agreement restricting competition, in violation of EU antitrust legislation, in order to promote, with illegal means and purposes, the exclusive use in healthcare companies of the more expensive drug Lucentis (550 euros per injection), discouraging the use of the cheaper Avastin (20-30 euros per injection); the AGCM had fined the two companies over 180 million euros (90 million each). The companies had appealed to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, which rejected it. Similar pronouncements by the Council of State and the European Court of Justice. Now the Council of State has issued two sentences confirming the fine by the Antitrust (184 million) for Novartis and Roche.

In February 2019, the Tuscany Region had sent the two pharmaceutical companies a request for compensation for damages-warning for a total of 43 million (over 39 for pecuniary damage and almost 4 for non-pecuniary damage), also specifying the IBAN of the Region on which to make the payment (or, alternatively, the IBANs of all the university health and hospital companies). However, the payment was never made. Now, in the light of the sentence of the Council of State, the Region will take legal action.

"The pronouncement of the Council of State comforts us, and confirms the picture of damage to the health service - said President Rossi - For this reason I have given a mandate to our lawyers to undertake civil legal action so that these two companies can refound us for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage. I am absolutely convinced – he commented – that the pharmaceutical industry is very important in a country, without the pharmaceutical industry that invests, there would be no research and improvement of treatments. It is therefore right that research should be funded. But it is just as right to fight those situations of monopoly, from which companies take advantage, to the detriment of the health service. Wherever it is possible, with the same effectiveness, to use the drug that costs less, that one should be used".

"Basically - Rossi finally recalled - this story is not very different from the recent one of oncological drugs that cannot be found: when a new drug is introduced on the market, which costs more, you can no longer find the old ones, which they cost less, but they are equally effective”.

Tuscany News
Information agency of the Regional Council

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The sentence of the Council of State has put an end to the Avastin-Lucentis case, definitively rejecting the appeals of the companies and confirming sanctions for about 180 million to the pharmaceutical companies involved, I will keep you updated on the next actions we will put in place to allow the Health Service to have the right compensation for the economic damage suffered.

Giulia Grillo