Spanish Antitrust Authority Investigates Prices of Aspen Pharma’s Cancer Drugs

Aspen Pharma and Deco Pharma, the company’s distributor, face disciplinary proceedings from Spain’s antitrust authority for allegedly limiting the distribution and hiking the prices of drugs.

Spain’s National Market and Competition Commission (CNMC) began the proceedings and an investigation after the Italian Competition Authority (ICA), another antitrust authority, alerted the agency to the company’s misconduct.

In October 2016, ICA fined Aspen for raising the price of four drugs — Leukeran, Alkeran, Purinethol and Tioguanine — after purchasing the cancer therapies from GlaxoSmithKline. Aspen increased the cost of the therapies by up to 1,500 percent by adopting an “aggressive” price negotiation strategy that included threatening the supply of drugs to Italy, according to ICA.