Competition Bureau Discontinues Pharma "Product Hopping" Inquiry

On May 13, 2014, the Competition Bureau (Bureau) announced that it has discontinued its inquiry into Alcon for alleged abuse of dominance with respect to prescription ophthalmic drugs. As outlined in our previous article on the new draft Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines, the Bureau has indicated that it is focusing on the interface between intellectual property and competition law, more specifically in the pharmaceutical industry.

The Bureau was investigating whether Alcon had engaged in "product hopping" (also known as "product switching"), a product life-cycle management strategy whereby a brand name drug company patents a new formulation of an existing drug, protected by one or more additional patents, and then tries to prevent or delay competition from generic companies with respect to the original formulation by forcibly switching patients to the newer formulation before patent expiry on the original formulation.