European Commission (“the Commission”) has announced that it has accepted commitments submitted by Vifor to address the anti-competitive effects caused by disparaging its closest and potentially only competitor in the intravenous iron drugs market.
The Commission stated that it had concerns that Vifor may have a dominant position in many national markets within the EU for the supply of intravenous iron medicines. Furthermore, the Commission concluded that Vifor may have restricted competition in many national markets for many years by disseminating misleading information about the safety of Monofer, an iron deficiency treatment medicine marketed by Pharmacosmos, Vifor's closest competitor in Europe.
To address the Commission's concerns, Vifor has made the following commitments:
- To launch a comprehensive and multi-channel communication campaign to rectify and undo the effects of the potentially misleading messages previously disseminated by Vifor regarding the safety of Monofer,
- Not to engage in external promotional and medical communications, in writing or orally, about Monofer's safety profile using information that is neither based on Monofer's label nor derived from clinical trials specifically designed to compare Ferinject and Monofer across the entire EEA,
- To implement a number of measures and safeguards to ensure compliance including internal trainings of staff and a system of certification of compliance.
Accordingly the Commission concluded that Vifor's final commitments could address competition concerns regarding Vifor's disparagement of Monofer and decided to make them binding for Vifor.
(European Commission – 22.07.2024)
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