Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals

Competition in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors interacts simultaneously with innovation, intellectual property rights, regulatory approvals, pricing and reimbursement systems, public procurement and distribution channels. The lengthy process involved in developing and bringing a new pharmaceutical product to market, together with substantial research and development costs, makes licensing, co-development and technology transfer agreements a natural feature of the sector.

While such agreements may support innovation, they may require competition law assessment where they contain provisions capable of affecting the future commercial conduct of actual or potential competitors. Distribution agreements, transfers of product portfolios, collaborative R&D projects, tender processes, exchanges of competitively sensitive information and employment-related practices between companies are also important areas for the sector. Recent enforcement activity of the Turkish Competition Authority in the pharmaceutical sector demonstrates that labour markets have also become an active area of competition law scrutiny.

KFD Consulting assesses commercial collaborations and strategic transactions undertaken by healthcare and pharmaceutical companies with due regard to the sector's regulatory characteristics. Rather than unnecessarily restricting innovation or legitimate cooperation, the legal analysis focuses on distinguishing areas that genuinely present competition concerns.