More Antitrust Probes for Novartis, Roche

April 10, 2014

France's competition authority is investigating Swiss drugmakers Roche and Novartis on suspicion they were involved in anti-competitive practices in relation to the distribution of their wet age-related macular degeneration treatments.

In March, Italian antitrust authorities fined Novartis and Roche a total of $250 million for allegedly colluding to prevent the use of Roche’s Avastin cancer drug as a treatment for eye disease, in favor of the pricer drug, Lucentis, that the two companies market jointly for the eye condition wet AMD, the leading cause of blindness in the elderly.

A statement on the French authority's website said it had conducted "search and confiscation" operations on April 8 in relation to treatments for wet AMD, but it did not name the companies involved.

Read the Reuters press release