EU antitrust regulators charged French drugmaker Servier, Israel’s Teva and four other firms on Monday with blocking the entry of a cheaper generic medicine to market as part of a crackdown on a key business practice in the industry. The European Commission had flagged the move last week after charging nine drug companies including Germany’s Merck and Danish peer Lundbeck for a similar offence related to another generic medicine. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have warned drugmakers against “pay-for-delay” deals, where brand-name companies pay generic companies to abstain from putting their rival medicines on the market.
