The European Commission fined Lundbeck $125.6 million for paying its competitors, Merk KGaA, Ranbaxy Laboratories, and Xellia Pharmaceuticals, in 2002 to delay entering the market with generic versions of Lundbeck’s antidepressant citalopram.
Joaquin Almunia, EC vice president for competition policy, explained that the Commission could not accept “that a company pays off its competitors to stay out of its market and delay the entry of cheaper medicines.” He explained that “[a]greements of this type directly harm patients and national health systems, which are already under tight budgetary constraints.”