Affordable access to many drugs is made difficult by high prices. At the same time, serious questions are being asked about the degree of innovation and value offered by increasingly costly treatments.
A number of competition enforcement actions against excessive pricing have recently taken place in the pharmaceutical sector, despite competition authorities usually being reluctant to intervene directly against high prices. In common with other instances of application of competition law in the pharmaceutical sector, these cases require a deep understanding of market dynamics and sectoral regulation, and of the various regulatory responses that may be deployed to address high prices.
In November 2018, the OECD held a discussion on excessive prices at the intersection between competition law and regulated sectors such as pharma.
All related materials for the discussion are available on this page.
