Overview of EU and South African regulatory and competition law in the Pharma sector

We are delighted that, for the second year, our overviews of competition and regulatory law in the pharmaceutical sector in the EU and South Africa have now been published as part of the Lexology Getting the Deal Through Pharmaceutical Antitrust guide. This online publication serves as a quick reference guide, enabling side-by-side comparison of jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction insights into competition legislation and regulation relevant to the pharmaceutical sector (legislation and enforcement authorities, public and private enforcement and remedies, sector inquiries, health authority and NGO involvement); review of mergers; anticompetitive agreements; anticompetitive unilateral conduct; pharmaceutical regulatory law (framework, authorities, pricing, distribution and intersection with competition law); as well as recent trends.

This year's edition includes the following updates on EU competition and regulatory developments in the pharmaceutical sector:

• Updates on EU case law, including the Illumina/Grail, Towercast, Servier, Teva and Vifor Pharma cases.
• Updates on EU competition reforms, such as the Market Definition Notice, Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation and Guidance enforcement priorities in applying Article 102 TFEU.
• Amendment of the EU general pharmaceutical legislation.

In relation to South Africa, this year's edition includes updates on:

• The Competition Commission's Guidelines on (i) Small Merger Notifications; and (ii) the Exchange of Competitively Sensitive Information between Competitors under the Competition Act.
• Updates on South African case law, including the merger decision of Dis-Chem Pharmacies Ltd and Pure Pharmacy Holdings (Pty) Ltd, and Babelegi Workwear and Industrial Supplies CC v Competition Commission of South Africa.

Our EU chapter can be accessed online here, our South Africa chapter here, and the full guide can be accessed here.

These articles follow our cross-office update on Competition Law developments in the Pharma Sector, posted earlier this year, which covered developments in the EU, France, Germany, Spain, UK and China.