Supporting innovation, competition and sustainability

COVID-19 has thrust pharmaceutical companies into the spotlight—and this means more attention than ever is being paid to healthcare policy and compliance.

With pricing, competition and innovation high on the regulatory agenda, we can support you in ensuring that your products and practices can withstand scrutiny from regulators, competition authorities, and courts.

Our expertise in competition economics, regulation, and finance and valuation means we offer support to life sciences and pharmaceutical firms in:

• antitrust investigations and litigation
• mergers and acquisitions
• state aid applications
• damages actions
• various commercial disputes (including IP and licensing disputes)
• broader regulatory issues

Experts in antitrust issues and commercial disputes

Our economists can partner with you (or your clients) to solve issues such as concerns about excessive pricing, rebates and refusal to supply, patent settlement agreements and other exclusionary concerns, and collaboration agreements.

With extensive international experience in litigation and arbitration, we regularly provide expert advice and testimony in disputes involving damages from an antitrust infringement, a launch-at-risk or those arising from an injunction, reasonable royalty assessments and patent valuation, breach of contract, and other contractual issues.

Broader regulatory support for you

Strong regulation and effective policy are paramount in such a critical, innovative sector. To support evidence-based policies, we can advise on:

• design of regulatory tools to address market failures
• rate-of-return regulation
• funding scenario design
• impact assessments of specific policies

Our experience

We advise suppliers of pharmaceutical products and medical devices and other healthcare suppliers, including pharmacies and hospitals, on a full range of issues. For example, we have:

• advised Aspen during the investigation by the UK competition authority into its pricing and agreements, and are involved in multiple ongoing excessive pricing investigations
• advised and testified on behalf of Merck KGa during the investigations into its patent settlement agreements with GSK and Lundbeck, and subsequent appeals of the decision of the European Commission and the UK CMA
• supported a global pharmaceutical manufacturer in relation to potential abuse of dominance through loyalty rebates
• advised on multiple merger assessments across the industry, including mergers between manufacturers, pharmacies, and hospitals
• testified for Pfizer in the Federal Court of Australia in a litigation involving damages to generic suppliers from an injunction, and have advised on multiple such damages cases for both claimants and defendants
• advised a global pharmaceutical firm in an arbitration involving a collaboration agreement and subsequent licensing dispute
• been engaged as an expert for a large medical device supplier in the context of its application for an injunction