Chile: Pfizer affiliate rejects accusations of market power abuses

G.D. Searle LLC, a Chilean subsidiary of pharma giant Pfizer, has responded to accusations by the country’s economic prosecutors, the FNE, and the country’s Tribunal for the Defense of Free Competition (TDLC), rejecting claims of market power abuse in the sale and placement of medicines containing the Celecoxib active ingredient, dominated by the brand’s Celebra formula.

The response, filed by Chilean attorney Guillermo Carey, states that “the FNE’s assessments are incorrect, and suffer from serious vices that lay bare a lack of understanding of the patent medicine system, which totally undermine the argument presented.” The statement clarifies that the conducts being denounced by the economic regulator as exclusionary and abusive are in fact “correspondent to the legitimate enforcement of G.D. Searle’s right to obtain – and then to defend- a currently valid patent protection.”

The statement emphasizes that their patent protection was granted through legitimate means. Furthermore, the company states, this protection has not only been granted in Chile, but also in several other countries such as Japan, Australia, Canada, China and India, where “it enjoys active, peaceful protection.”

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