US FTC TO MOVE ON CURBS TO COMPETITION

The US Federal Trade Commission is to take enforcement action against a branded drug company which has been found to be engaging in abuses of the regulatory system aimed at defeating or retarding market entry by a competitor, the acting deputy director of the Commission's Bureau of Competition, Mark Whitener, has revealed. The action should be announced soon.

The FTC investigation was first discussed by Mr Whitener in testimony to a Senate hearing last November, and since then, he told the National Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers this month, "we have continued and perhaps increasingly made this industry a focus at the Bureau of Competition." Since November the FTC has received "contacts, information and complaints" about possible anticompetitive activities, and as a result has opened over a dozen new investigations. Also, some investigations that were pending at the time are still going on.

Among the antitrust practices which have been under investigation at the FTC are: