British agency fines Pfizer $109M for drug prices

By Barry Eitel

SAN FRANCISCO (AA) – Pfizer was hit with a record $106 million fine Wednesday by British regulators for a 2,600 percent hike on the price of a drug used to treat epilepsy.

In 2012 the company intentionally de-branded a drug known as Epanutin and it became phenytoin sodium, officials from the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said. The capsules are now used by 48,000 epilepsy patients in the U.K.

Overnight, Pfizer was able to increase the price 2,600 percent so Britain’s National Health Service’s bill for the drug increased from about $2.5 million in 2012 to $63 million in 2013. The CMA noted that the U.K. was paying an exponentially higher price than other countries in Europe.

A $6.7 million fine was also issued by the CMA to Flynn Pharma, the U.K.-based distributor of the drug.

“Businesses are generally free to set prices as they see fit but those holding a dominant position should not abuse this situation and set prices that are excessive and unfair,” Philip Marsden, the CMA’s lead investigator on the case, said in a statement. “There is no justification for such rises when phenytoin sodium capsules are a very old drug for which there has been no recent innovation or significant investment.”

Pfizer, which is based in New York, denied the allegations and vowed to fight the largest-ever fine by the CMA.

“Pfizer believes the CMA's findings are wrong in fact and law and will be appealing all aspects of the Decision,” the company said in a statement.

Pfizer has between one and four months to drop the price of the drug to an amount that is profitable but not excessive, the CMA said. The companies have two months to launch an appeal of the fine.

The dispute is the latest in an international clash between pharmaceutical companies and patients, as well as government regulators, about the cost of vital medicines.

The question of drug prices received a dust up in publicity after a pharmaceutical firm last year raised the price of a drug used by AIDS patients from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Another volatile backlash followed when the company behind the EpiPen, an essential medical device for people with severe allergies, attempted to raise prices 500 percent in May.