The Association of Pharmaceutical Importers has been granted leave to apply for judicial review of the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme. The API claims that the PPRS is anticompetitive because recent enforced price cuts have reduced the number of parallel imports available.
Companies have had to cut by 4.5 per cent overall their prices to the National Health Service. Individual price cuts have varied from one product to another.
The API is suggesting that companies have loaded large price cuts onto products which are subject to parallel importing. This has had the effect of making such imports no longer viable, which the API says is anticompetitive.
Mr John Barker (chairman, API) said: "Manufacturers need only discount older therapies, especially those subject to competition from API members, while keeping prices high for the latest products. It is likely that the NHS drugs bill will go up rather than down. The only real effect is likely to be to freeze out pharmaceutical distributors from supplying many key lines."