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The Commission gets it very wrong

The Competition Commission is investigating Pfizer for charging excessive prices for a lung cancer drug in South Africa that is not sold locally.

On Tuesday‚ the commission stated it was investigating three pharmaceutical companies for “excessive prices” for cancer drugs.

But the commission made several mistakes‚ including getting the name of Pfizer’s drug wrong.

The commission did not note that all drug prices are approved and signed off by the medicines pricing committee in the department of health.

The commission said it had information that gives “rise to reasonable suspicion that Pfizer has and continues to engage in excessive pricing conduct in provision of crizotinib“. Pfizer confirmed to The Times crizotinib is not registered in South Africa.

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An unregistered drug cannot be sold in South Africa and will not have a price. The commission complained about the R152‚000 price saying it was in possession of information that this treatment was “unaffordable“. Pfizer denied this price.

Wits Oncology Professor Paul Ruff explained that a handful of patients accessed this drug using a special Section 21 Permit to buy it overseas and import because it not was not available here.

Medicines only get a set price approved by the Department of Health’s medicine pricing committee after they are registered in the country‚ he said‚ so crizotinib has no local price or supplier.

The European Commission is investigating Aspen for a 1‚500 % increase for a 50-year-old leukeamia drug in the UK and a 4‚000% increase in Spain.

On Tuesday the commission said it would also investigate Aspen saying it was in “possession of information that Aspen had engaged in the same conduct locally“.

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However‚ it failed to note all price increases for all drugs are set annually by the Department of Health.

Aspen confirmed to The Times the drugs under investigation have increased on average 6.25% since 2009 when Aspen bought the drug portfolio from GlaxoSmithKLine.

The commission said Aspen’s drug prices may be “excessive“. The drug used for leukamia‚ Leukeran‚ costs between R2‚800 and R4‚800 a month per patient.

Myleran‚ used for a blood cancer‚ costs an average of R2‚086 a month but the dose and price will drop after a few months if the cancer goes into remission‚ said Aspen’s spokesman Stavros Nicolau.

The commission also took issue with Roche’s cancer drug which costs R500‚000 in the private sector for a year’s course

The commission said people couldn’t access the drugs and charged Roche with “exclusionary conduct“.

But this drug is about to be provided to state patients at one of the lowest prices in the world within months‚ two sources close to the Roche and Department of Health negotiations said.

Roche told the Times recently it believed a deal with the department on supplying this drug to state patients was “about to be finalised” saying negotiations were “advanced“.

Two sources also confirmed the Competition Commission never even called the department of health to get its views on the matter or check the Commission’s facts.

All three pharmaceutical companies learned of the investigations through the media statement and said so to TimesLIVE.

The commission also charged Roche with “price discrimination” because it has a state price for Herceptin and a private price. However‚ The Medicines Act allows the prices for medicines for state patients and private patients to differ and‚ in fact‚ a high private price is used to subsidise very low state prices for nearly all medicines in the country‚ two industry sources confirmed.

Aspen said on Tuesday in a SENS statement that all the drugs under investigation for excessive pricing sell for less than R3-million a year combined.

Competition Commission spokesman Sipho Ngwenya said the commission knew the Pfizer drug was not sold here but it would investigate Pfizer nonetheless.

Ngwenya said: “Whilst we accept that the drug is not registered in SA‚ however‚ the conduct has an effect in the country as there are patients who use the drug here. These patients are subjected to very high pricing. Further‚ our investigation will in any event probe why it is not registered here.”

Asked about the fact drug increases are set by government he said: “Even though there is single exit price [set by government]‚ this neither means prices cannot be excessive nor is the process beyond scrutiny. There are drugs that have been investigated in other countries for excessive prices that Aspen supplies to SA.”

He also said the Competition Commission had “a sufficient basis to start an investigation“.

“Part of our probe will look into patent laws and their effect on entry [of generic products].”

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