Chile’s National Competition Tribunal (TDLC) has fined two of the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies US$38 million for colluding to fix the price of drugs. It is the largest penalty ever imposed by the authority.

The US Federal Trade Commission has sued to block Omnicare’s hostile bid for its rival PharMerica, saying a merger of the country’s two largest long-term care pharmacies had the potential to harm competition.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced it will not seek a Supreme Court judgment on its monopolisation case against pharmaceutical company Lundbeck, marking the end of a protracted antitrust battle.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has imposed fines of almost 7 million renminbi (around €813,000) on two pharmaceutical companies for abuse of dominance in the market for blood pressure drugs. The fines are the first significant penalties the authority has issued for breach of competition law.

A group of 11 Californian pharmacists have alleged that drug companies Pfizer and Ranbaxy Laboratories deliberately delayed the entry of a generic drug onto the market to inflate its price.

US drug suppliers Omnicare and PharMerica have agreed to share information about the antitrust risks associated with their merger.

The number of so-called “pay-for-delay” patent settlements between branded and generic drug makers declined last year, but potentially anti-competitive settlements continue to be pervasive in the pharmaceutical industry, the US Federal Trade Commission says.

The European Commission has announced it is investigating Johnson & Johnson and Novartis over an agreement that could prevent generic versions of the painkiller Fentanyl from entering the market.

Pharmaceutical competition lawyers need clarity on where the European Commission stands regarding the “grey area” of in-house legal privilege, delegates heard. Faaez Samadi in Brussels

India’s Competition Commission will gain oversight of so-called brownfield foreign direct investment (FDI) in the pharmaceutical sector in the next six months.

Health care company Bayer has triumphed in an antitrust law suit brought by rival Sandoz.

Drug maker AstraZeneca has agreed to pay US$20 million to settle a potential class action lawsuit accusing the company of using sham patent litigation to unfairly monopolise the market for the branded heart disease medication Tropol XL.