Competition record
Aspen Pharma
Deep profile · 1 linked library matter
Aspen is a drug company that sells off-patent medicines, including older cancer drugs. The EU excessive-pricing case on those cancer drugs is recorded in this library as fined.
Overview
Aspen Pharmacare is a South African pharmaceutical group that sells generic and specialty medicines in many countries. Among its products are cancer drugs whose patents have expired, the kind hospitals keep in stock because a known regimen still depends on them.
The European Commission investigated sharp price increases on a group of those off-patent oncology medicines, in markets where Aspen was in practice the supplier health systems had to deal with. The theory was excessive pricing by a dominant supplier of essential old drugs, together with pressure on supply when buyers resisted the increases.
The library status is fined. The medicines were already off patent, so the case is about what a dominant supplier charged health systems for older cancer drugs.
Competition footprint
Hospital buyers and national health systems pay for the off-patent cancer drugs.
When one company holds the only practical source, a price rise has no generic alternative to discipline it.
The recorded outcome is a fine, and the figure is left out of this profile.
Consumer & business angle
Cancer patients and the public budgets that buy their drugs felt the price increases.
Hospitals that could not readily switch suppliers were the customers facing the higher list.
What to watch
- How European authorities treat large price jumps on off-patent drugs that have no remaining rival supplier.
- Supply commitments that keep an old oncology product available after a pricing case.
Markets
off-patent cancer medicines · generic and specialty drugs · off-patent oncology medicines · hospital pharmaceuticals
Also known as: aspen pharmacare, aspen