In Brief In a judgment of 18 October 2023 (T-74/21), the EU’s General Court roundly dismissed the appeal by Teva and Cephalon against the European Commission’s 2020 decision imposing fines of approximately €30 million on each of them for concluding an anti-competitive patent settlement agreement back in 2005. In some ways the case is an historic relic: since the US Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Actavis and the Commission’s decision a few days later in…
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has recently issued a judgment clarifying that wholesale distributors may not obtain medicines directly from pharmacies that do not hold a wholesale distribution licence (WDA). This represents a useful confirmation of the current law, a rule that is set to remain under the new EU Pharmaceutical Package. With its judgment dated September 21, 2023 (Case C-47/22), the CJEU ruled on the interpretation of Article 80, first…
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has published a draft reflection paper which considers the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to the development, regulation and use of medicines. This paper, which is now open for public consultation, evaluates the risks, benefits and opportunities that AI and ML present to the entire lifecycle for medicines. Underlying the paper is EMA’s concern around the challenges of integrating AI and ML into the medicines lifecycle,…
In the third and final post of our ‘Kick Start your Healthcare Reorganisation’ series, we focus on the post-implementation matters often encountered on healthcare and life sciences reorganisations. These range from the many regulatory requirements through to ensuring steps are taken to realise the maximum value from the reorganisation. These post-implementation matters often bring us back to, and illustrate the importance of, careful early planning and seamless implementation. The significant consequences of any change of…
In the second post of our ‘Kick Start your Healthcare Reorganisation’ series we focus on the implementation phase of a healthcare and life sciences reorganisation and specifically the following three areas: document execution; funds flow; and operational go-live. Whilst each area is individually significant, and is likely to have its own dedicated workstream, it is important to recognise that they each go hand in hand when looking to achieve smooth (and successful) implementation. Document execution…
On 25 July 2023, the EU Commission published its response to the European Citizens’ Initiative’s petition on “Save Cruelty-free Cosmetics – Commit to a Europe without Animal Testing”. The petition received 1.2 million signatures from EU citizens and the EU Commission must respond to petitions gathering 1 million signatures or more. The EU Commission has confirmed the following in response to the requests of the petition: Protect and strengthen the cosmetics animal testing ban The…
Last month, the UK House of Commons debated the current state of regulatory and legal hurdles negatively affecting the development of psilocybin-based (the psychedelic compound most commonly found in ‘magic mushrooms’) therapies for mental and physical health disorders in the UK. The debate resulted from an e-petition, which garnered 11,824 votes in February this year. The debate saw a consensus among Members of Parliament across party lines, collectively supporting the proposal for rescheduling psilocybin from…
In the first post of our ‘Kick Start your Healthcare Reorganisation’ series we focus on the planning phase of a reorganisation in the healthcare and life sciences sector in the context of spin offs, carve outs and other solvent group restructurings. It goes without saying that when preparing for a large reorganisation there is a significant amount of planning required to ensure seamless transition and continuity of supply chain. The industry is heavily regulated which…
Undertaking large, complex corporate reorganisation projects, such as spin offs, carve outs and other solvent group restructurings, always presents challenges to be considered, planned for and overcome. Some of those challenges are inherent to reorganisations in general but there are also those which stem from particular industry factors. Over the next three weeks, we will be focusing on the healthcare and life sciences industry and will, through a series of posts, highlight key considerations at…
On June 13, the French Government released a list of 450 medicines considered “essential” to meet patient priority needs and which require specific measures to ensure their availability. Medicines were selected according to shortage criticality combining frequency of use and severity in case of shortage. The current list is available here but is not set in stone. It is intended to be enriched and updated according to changes in the French population’s needs and the…