Economics – Overview
Global Competition Review, The European, Middle Eastern, and African Antitrust Review 2019, June 27, 2018
Every year, Global Competition Review publishes a series of reports intended to offer detailed information to agencies and practitioners engaged in antitrust and competition work throughout the world. The 2019 edition of the review focused on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) includes an economics overview written by Analysis Group affiliate David Mishol and Vice President Joshua White, who is based in the firm's London office.
In their overview, Dr. Mishol and Mr. White focus on competition authorities' increasing scrutiny of the pharmaceutical industry over the past several years, which has resulted in several cases involving excessive pricing and “pay-for-delay” accusations. A key aspect of such cases is whether the drugs in question face competition from other products already on the market; this, in turn, requires an examination of market definition. Because the pharmaceutical market has several unique features that can complicate attempts to use existing market definition tools, Dr. Mishol and Mr. White describe a number of approaches that have been used in selected recent cases. They then outline some economic analyses that can be used to assess the relevant pharmaceutical markets in these cases, and lay out implications for future analyses.