REUTERS. Italy’s antitrust authorities said Novartis and Roche colluded [konspirererade] to try and stop cancer drug Avastin being used to treat a serious eye disease, and fined the Swiss drugmakers 182.5 million euros ($251 million).
In a statement on Wednesday, the Italian regulator accused the two Basel-based companies of striking an alliance to prevent distribution of Roche’s Avastin as a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in favor of the more expensive drug Lucentis made by Novartis.
The authority said it estimated that the alleged collusion has cost the Italian health service an additional 45 million euros in 2012, and said that figure could possibly exceed 600 million euros a year in the future.