Ethics and competition law in the pharmaceutical industry

The pharmaceutical industry plays an important role in every economy. Although pharmaceutical sector has distinctive economic features, like every other sector of the economy, the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals must obey competition law rules.
The provisions regarding unilateral anticompetitive conduct such as discriminatory pricing, aggressive price setting, abusing a dominate position and hoarding and refusal to inter into transactions as well as collective anticompetitive conducts such as collusion are some important competition rules which are applicable in the pharmaceutical industry.
Although the existence of competition law and regulation is necessary for working in pharmaceutical industry but pharmaceutical ethics can prevent committing the anticompetitive conducts and plays an effective role as a deterrent factor. This Article while reviewing the application of competition law rules in pharmaceutical industry introduces the anticompetitive behaviors in this sector.We also focus on the competition council’s function in monitoring the pharmaceutical industry and the role of professional ethics in preventing theviolation of competition law in this sector.