Stampa

DIABETES TESTING DEVICES


PRESS RELEASE



PRESS RELEASE

The Competition Authority has imposed penalties on a price-fixing cartel for diabetes testing devices, with a fine of euro 30.5 million on Roche, Ortho, Bayer, Menarini and Abbott

At its meeting on 30 April 2003, the Competition Authority resolved that the Roche Diagnostics, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Bayer, Menarini e Abbott companies, with the active participation of their trade association Assobiomedica, had concluded an anti-competitive agreement on the Italian market for blood glucose tests for home use. Considering the serious nature of this agreement, the Authority imposed fines totalling euro 30.5 million.
The investigation began as a result of complaints from a number of Local Health Authorities, and from private individuals reporting anti-competitive conduct on the part of the manufacturers.
The particular features of this market, which generates a turnover of some euro 150 million are: the fact that the two parts of the testing kit are technologically complementary (a test strip and an optical reader); only the diagnostic strips are refundable from the National Health Service; there is no single refund price laid down nationwide, and the local/regional health authorities are free to choose between two alternative systems for distributing them: indirectly, through pharmacies, or directly, through the Local Health Authorities' own structures. In the former case, the local/regional health authorities reimburse the pharmacist, while in the second case they procure the items directly from the manufacturers on the basis of a public tender.
The investigation revealed that the companies involved had agreed upon a single strategy through their association, to remove any price competition for the test strips, discussing and agreeing on the conduct to be adopted to achieve this purpose. The widespread coordination of their commercial policies resulted in three different approaches, all designed to implement their strategy, to the serious jeopardy of the National Health Service authorities which purchased their products, because of the higher costs incurred.
More specifically, the companies in question:
1)         prevented, hampered or at all events interfered with the tenders called by the Local Health Authorities, and even boycotted them, in order to remove any competition and hence discourage the authorities for adopting for the direct distribution of the strips;
2)         coordinated the conditions for the supplying test strips in response to requests from the pharmacists' associations, in order to eliminate any possible competitive offering;
3)         jointly set a single agreed price for the supply of the testing strips to pharmacies for indirect distribution.

Considering the serious nature of the offence, which was designed to eliminate price competition between the manufacturers, the Competition Authority imposed the following fines:


ROCHE DIAGNOSTICS S.p.A
€ 9,000,000
ORTHO CLINICAL DIAGNOSTIC S.p.A.
€ 7,500,000
BAYER S.p.A.
€ 6,000,000
A.MENARINI - Industrie Farmaceutiche Riunite S.r.l.
€ 6,000,000
ABBOTT S.p.A.
€ 2,000,000



Rome, 15 May 2003