THE NEXT MEETING OF THE PHARMA WORKING GROUP TO BE ON DECEMBER 17

In March 2020, the World Health Organization recognized COVID-19 as a global pandemic: in a few months, the virus spread around the globe. The coronavirus pandemic has affected the entire global economy, including the pharmaceutical sector. It has caused rapid changes in the structure of the pharmaceutical and medical products markets, exposing the problems of access to medicines and medical care to the population, and thus posing new challenges to the Antimonopoly authorities.

The questions of competition protection in pharmaceutical markets are in the agenda of the next meeting of the Working Group for the Research of Competition Issues in Pharmaceutical markets to be held on December 17.

Among items of the agenda one can find the following:

1.            How the pandemic affected the pharmaceutical markets?

2.            Has your authority identified cases of violation of antitrust laws during a pandemic?

3.            Has your authority introduced any changes into the legislation on competition (so-called “law exemptions”) fpr pharmaceutical markets due to pandemic?