Pfizer and Flynn Pharma to appeal £70m fine for price hiking
Pfizer and Flynn Pharma have filed an appeal against the UK’s competition watchdog over its decision to fine the firms £70m for hiking the price of a life-saving epilepsy drug.
Pharma giant Pfizer and privately-owned neuroscience specialist Flynn are appealing the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA’s) £70m fine, after the two firms previously forced the watchdog to lower the sum from £89m through an earlier appeal.
The CMA fined Pfizer £63m and Flynn £6.7m in July over claims the firms hiked the price of phenytoin sodium capsules by up to 2,600 per cent.
The price hikes saw the NHS’s costs jump from £2m in 2012 to £50m the following year.
The CMA initially fined Pfizer £84.2m and Flynn £5.2m over the price hikes, before the pharma firms successfully appealed the watchdog’s decision and forced it to reevaluate the fines.
The two firms are now appealing the CMA’s new decision to fine them combined sums of £70m, according to two separate notices submitted by Flynn and Pfizer to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).
Flynn called for the £6.7m fine issued against it to be “set aside or substantially reduced” as it argued the returns it earned on the epilepsy drug “were in line with” the price of other anti-seizure medicines.
Pfizer also called for an annulment or reduction of the £63m fine handed to it along with compensation for costs incurred by the firm relating to its appeal.
A CMA spokesperson told Morning Wire: “The CMA will defend its findings that Pfizer’s and Flynn Pharma’s prices were illegal, as well as its decision to impose fines on the companies.”
Pfizer declined to comment. Flynn Pharma has been approached by Morning Wire for comment.