Following a £84.2 million fine by Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) Friday, December 9, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer will have to turn its attention again to the Jamaican courts, where its lawyers are seeking to minimise compensation owed to two local distributors – Lasco and Medimpex Jamaica — for loss of earnings.

It is the latest development in what could easily be described as the New York-based firm’s drug market control saga which, unfortunately, has cost the local firms seven years of sales of a particular drug and probably stifled their growth and could even have punished local hypertension/blood pressure sufferers over the period 2007-2012.

In October, Pfizer lost a patent appeal in the United Kingdom over a pain killing drug called Lyrica, one of its top sellers.

At that time, three London judges upheld a 2015 ruling that Allergan Plc’s Actavis unit didn’t infringe Pfizer patents with its version of the drug pregabalin. The disputed patent covers the use of pregabalin for the treatment of pain.

A similar issue between Pfizer and Lasco and Medimpex ended up in the UK Privy Council last year in the local firms’ favour. However, the Privy Council sent back the issue of compensation for the local firms to the local Supreme Court which reconvenes on January 23 to complete the hearings.

Lyrica, which is also used to treat epilepsy, generated sales of US$4.8 billion for Pfizer in 2015. Pfizer also sued Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd over their generic pregabalin products.

On December 9, Britain’s anti-trust regulators imposed a record fine of US$107 million (£84.2 million) on Pfizer for overcharging the National Health Service (NHS) for an epilepsy treatment.

According to the CMA, in its ruling last week, Pfizer and drug-distribution company Flynn Pharma broke competition laws by charging unfair prices in the UK for the drug phenytoin sodium, which is used by close to 50,000 epilepsy patients there.

The CMA said that the fine was the highest it had ever imposed.

The CMA also said Pfizer and Flynn Pharma “deliberately debranded” the drug in 2012 to raise the price. They were able to do so because there were no competitors. For example, the price of a 100-milligramme pack of phenytoin sodium moved from £2.83 to £67.50, after Pfizer sold the rights to sell the drug to Flynn Pharma in September 2012.

In the United States there is the contention that Hilary Clinton’s threat to create an oversight panel to protect US consumers from huge drug price increases on lifesaving drugs and to import alternative treatments and virtually “rein in” overall drug prices, might have contributed to her loss of some important support in the recent US presidential elections.

Jamaica has no regulatory body to control drug prices, either — not since the 1970s, when the then government led by Michael Manley set up the State Trading Corporation (STC) to import pharmaceuticals. But, Manley had to dismantle teh STC in 1978, under an agreement he reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which demanded its closure as a condition for a loan to save the faltering local economy — leaving the pricing of drugs to market forces.

Dr Norman Dunn, who heads the Jamaica Pharmacy Council, believes that Jamaica would have to be extremely cautious making any decision regarding a return to the regulation of drug prices.

He says that if there is evidence of widespread abuse of drug prices, the abuse may require regulation. However, he is concerned that regulation might lead to reduced investments in research and development, which would be a serious setback to the development of modern health care.

He admits that current market forces create a situation in which only the strongest can survive. However, he is cautious that price controls could distort the market.

“We hope that good sense will prevail in the market so that products are offered at prices that are affordable to the vast majority of Jamaicans,” Dr Dunn said.

In his statement to the current Supreme Court compensation hearings, Lasco’s boss Lascelles Chin raised the market prices isue.

He said that his experience during the ban was that Jamaicans suffering from hypertension could not afford even one of Pfzer’s Norvasc tables per day.

“I discovered the claimant, Pfizer Ltd, marketed a product under the brand name ‘Norvasc’, to treat this ailment (hypertension), which was being sold at a very high price that poor people who had to take one tablet per day, could not afford it,” Chin said.