A claim for damages amounting to 1,2 billion euros over three years. It is the one made by the Ministry of Health to the pharmaceutical companies Novartis and Roche for the case relating to the hypothesis of a "cartel" between the two drug giants, for economic purposes, to encourage the use of a more expensive eye drug, Lucentis , compared to another of equal efficacy, Avastin, less expensive but used as an off-label drug, i.e. outside the prescribed indications.
Both Roche and Novartis have defended themselves by defining the figures indicated by the Ministry of Health as unreal – «unreal figures» for Roche; "unfounded request" for Novartis - and both remembering that there is still no sentence. A claim for damages of 14 million euros was instead made by the ministry to the Pfizer company. The claim for damages to Pfizer refers, the department explains, to "conduct of abuse of a dominant position in relation to the marketing of the drug Xalatan". Instead, following the AGCM resolution of February 2014, which qualified the conduct of the companies F.Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Roche Spa, Novartis AG and Novartis Farma S.pA. as "a horizontal agreement restricting competition aimed at the marketing of the drug Lucentis which is much more expensive than the drug Avastin, equivalent to it", the ministry has requested from these companies "compensation for all pecuniary damages (about 45 million in 2012, 540 million in 2013 and 615 million in 2014) and non-pecuniary assets illegally caused to the NHS".
The claim for damages to Novartis and Roche is added to the 180 million fine imposed by the Antitrust on the companies for the same affair. Meanwhile, Roche and Novartis today renounced their request for the suspension of the fine paid two months ago by the Antitrust for the dispute between Avastin and Lucenti, questioned this morning at the Lazio Regional Administrative Court. This was announced by the Italian Society of Ophthalmology, the Soi, an active party in the affair and in the denunciation of the agreement sanctioned by the Authority. «Evidently the technical-scientific brief presented in court by Soi - affirms Matteo Piovella, President of the Company - was certainly better articulated and detailed than those present from a medical-scientific point of view and suggested the aforementioned decision since otherwise most likely the Tar would have rejected what was requested by Roche and Novartis». The merits of the judgment to reach the final sentence have been set for the first days of November.
In the meantime, therefore, the Antitrust decision remains effective and the fine will have to be paid by the pharmaceutical companies. The precise motivation of the decision is clarified by Novartis itself in a note: «Filing an application for suspension of the decision adopted by the Antitrust is a procedural faculty of the parties; Novartis has autonomously decided to renounce discussing this request for suspension as it is interested in reaching a definition on the merits of the judgment regarding the illegitimacy of the decision taken by the Antitrust in a short time, given the relevance and complexity of the case", specifies the company .
