http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/05/eu-widens-antitrust-probe-into-patent-practices/ News, Comment and Conversation Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:59:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/05/eu-widens-antitrust-probe-into-patent-practices/#comment-356877 Lothar Fri, 16 May 2008 06:11:05 +0000 http://www.pharmalot.com/?p=13650#comment-356877 I hope this will be the beginning of further investigations of the pharmaceutical industry in Europe. This antitrust probe is about generic medicine, competition and free market. The people in Europe - I live in Germany- should get the best medicine for the best price. That is what free market is about, right? But what about the illegal practices of the European pharma companies to push dangerous medicine like Vioxx and the SSRI- antidepressants ? Who is going the investgate that in Europe? I have written many letters about that to the German government and our regulatory agency BfArM - the german equivalent of the FDA. But they are turning a blind eye on that because they themselves are so much involved into it that they don’t want to uncover the whole thing. Now I will ask the EU commission to do something about that. It is very good that the EU commission is investigating the violation of antitrust laws in Europe. But that is only about money. It is much more important that the EU Commission is going after the illegal practices of the industry to get dangerous drugs registered to protect the people in Europe. Prozac, for instance, was approved despite many serious concerns about the safety and effectiveness of many European regulatory agencies. The Ex Eli Lilly manager John Virapen has recently written a book about that, how he bribed Swedish experts. This book is published in German and Swedish and will be published in English. The German Bundesgesundheitsamt (BGA) has requested further studies about the suicide risk of Prozac but these studies where never handed to the BGA. I hope this will be the beginning of further investigations of the pharmaceutical industry in Europe. This antitrust probe is about generic medicine, competition and free market. The people in Europe - I live in Germany- should get the best medicine for the best price. That is what free market is about, right?
But what about the illegal practices of the European pharma companies to push dangerous medicine like Vioxx and the SSRI- antidepressants ? Who is going the investgate that in Europe? I have written many letters about that to the German government and our regulatory agency BfArM - the german equivalent of the FDA. But they are turning a blind eye on that because they themselves are so much involved into it that they don’t want to uncover the whole thing. Now I will ask the EU commission to do something about that.
It is very good that the EU commission is investigating the violation of antitrust laws in Europe. But that is only about money. It is much more important that the EU Commission is going after the illegal practices of the industry to get dangerous drugs registered to protect the people in Europe. Prozac, for instance, was approved despite many serious concerns about the safety and effectiveness of many European regulatory agencies. The Ex Eli Lilly manager John Virapen has recently written a book about that, how he bribed Swedish experts. This book is published in German and Swedish and will be published in English. The German Bundesgesundheitsamt (BGA) has requested further studies about the suicide risk of Prozac but these studies where never handed to the BGA.

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