The management of the General Health Fund today approached Anti-Trust Authority director general David Tadmor with a demand that he examine whether the forming of the Pharma-Israel organisation constitutes an offence against the cartels Law. Associated in the Pharma-Israel organisation are fourteen international pharmaceutics companies engaging in research and development.
The member companies, including Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Smithkline-Beecham, Ely Lilly, La Roche, Pfizer, Novartis and Rhone-Polenc, have set up representations in Israel. They associated in the framework of Pharma-Israel in January 1999. The organisation says its object is to "safeguard public health and protect corporate copyright".
One of the organisation’s activities focuses on parallel import. In this context, it submitted to the Ministry of Health, about three months ago, a paper containing a series of recommendations as regards regulations that the ministry should enact, in connection with parallel import.
Pharma-Israel director-general Dr. Yoav Schechter, said that "The background to the presentation of the recommendations is the companies’ fear of the entry of ineffective and unsafe drugs into Israel".
GHF heads expressed misgivings that the organisation was formed in order to thwart the opening up of the pharmaceutics market to parallel import, on behalf of which the GHS has been militating for some time.
A letter forwarded to Tadmor through Adv. Dov Weisglass maintains that a document has reached the GHF management describing the objects of Pharma Israel. "My client has every reason to fear that the organisation's main purpose is to combat parallel import arrangements which, as everyone knows, are designed to substantially reduce the cost of imported drugs".
Weisglass therefore asks Tadmor to examine whether the founding and existence of the organisation are compatible with the Cartel Law 5748-1988.
Schechter commented that "Pharma Israel’s main task is to promote public health. The legal aspect relating to the lawfulness of its activities has been examined, and according to the opinion we obtained, constitutes no offence against the cartels law.
Published by Israel's Business Arena July 13, 1999