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Disappointed with the European Commission’s anti trust findings, drugmakers Lupin and Unichem said that they intend to appeal the decision.
“We are still awaiting official copy of the decision. We remain confident of our position and intend to appeal the decision,” a company spokesperson said, on the EC directive imposing fines on five companies including Indian drugmakers Lupin, Unichem (Niche) and Matrix (now owned by Mylan).
The allegation was that deals were concluded with France’s Servier on its blood pressure drug perindopril, resulting in the delayed entry of lower priced versions of the same drug in the market.
Denying any wrong doing, Unichem said it would appeal the decision. The EC decision refers to Niche’s settlement on a “financially crippling patent litigation” with Servier in early 2005, it said. Unichem took full ownership of Niche in 2006, it said, and so was not involved with the decision to settle, it added. “Unichem cannot in anyway see how it can be held accountable for what was in any event a pro-competitive act on the part of its part owned subsidiary Niche,” it said.
About the same time last year, Ranbaxy was one of nine companies slapped with a fine by the EC for delaying the marketing of its low-priced generic version of depression drug citalopram made by Danish company Lundbeck. Ranbaxy was to pay over Rs 80 crore, but company top-brass had then said they would appeal the EC directive.
A response is expected from Mylan (Matrix), possibly later today.
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