AstraZeneca Loses Appeal At ECJ

On 6 December 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) dismissed AstraZeneca ("AZ")'s appeal against the EU General Court's ruling in Case AstraZeneca v Commission, in which it was fined AZ €52.5 million for breaching competition laws.

The case deals with two forms of abusive conduct on the part of AZ. First, AZ made "misleading representations" to - and withheld regulatory information from - the patent offices of certain Member States in order to obtain or maintain supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) for its ulcer treatment drug, Losec, for the purpose of improperly extending patent protection in order to block generic competition. And second, AZ selectively delisted its marketing authorisations of Losec capsules in certain EU countries to replace them with Losec tablets and thus prevent the introduction of generic products via parallel imports.