Big multinational pharmaceutical companies are weathering the economic crisis for a good reason. According to the European Commission, big pharma ‘systematically rigged the market to squeeze out copycat medicines.’ The 400-page accusation report is the result of evidence from investigations that the European Commission gathered in January when it raided the headquarters of the biggest global pharma companies such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, Wyeth, Merck, Bayer Schering Pharma, Roche, and the generic companies of Teva and Sandoz. These companies can be meted with legal action if further investigations will prove that they ‘conspired to thwart European competition rules.’

Big Pharma is running out of time. By 2008-2012, patents will expire on a number of drugs that can potentially have aggregate total sales of approximately $114 billion. Among these are the bestselling brand names of Aricept for Alzheimers and the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor that is manufactured by Pfizer. AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline will also be affected by as much as one third of their sales when some of their patents expire by 2010. The medicine market in Europe is extremely lucrative, coming in at more than $175 billion. The average European spends approximately $550 a year on medicines, making the European
total pharmaceutical expenses at an annual $275 billion. If it were not for generic medicines that are 90 percent cheaper than branded drugs, Europeans would have spent upwards of 25 percent more.

Big pharma has been delaying the release of cheaper versions of their branded drugs when the patents of these expire. The European Commission discovered the use of patent clusters or the filing of many patent applications for a single drug. Giant drug companies also lobby heavily with national governments to block generic companies from getting regulatory approval. The Commission also discovered the delaying tactic of going on long-drawn litigation procedures that last an average of three years.

Via TIME