An Italian Administrative Court upholds the decision of the Italian Competition Authority on the Roche/Novartis case.

The Regional Administrative Court of Latium (Tar Lazio) has recently uphold all the rulings of the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) inits decision in the Roche/Novartis case. The ICA imposed on Roche and Novartis a fine of Euro 180 million for an anti-competitive practice breaching Article 101 TFEU. Roche and Novartis discouraged the off-label use of Avastin to treat glaucoma pathologies in favour of the much more expensive Lucentis by alleging that such use of Avastin was risky.
Roche and Novartis challenged the ICA decision before the Tar Lazio that rejected the appeal. In the view of the Tar Lazio, the ICA based its findings on many internal documents of the parties showing that they implemented a strategy of differentiation of Lucentis and Avastin. Their goal was to persuade health professionals that the off-label intravitreal use of Avastin was risky for patients. In this way the parties promoted the use of the on-label Lucentis drug to the detriment of the cheaper Avantis. It should be borne in mind that from the sales of Lucentis both the parties made a profit, as the drug was developed by Genentech, a subsidiary of Roche, and marketed in Europe by Novartis on the basis of a licence agreement with Roche.


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