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BRUSSELS Denny Mclain Jersey , July 9 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission (EC) has imposed a fine of 428 million euros (580 U.S. dollars) on French pharmaceutical company Servier and five producers of generic medicines for delaying the entry of cheaper generic medicine.


The commission said Servier and the other five companies, namely Niche Unichem, Matrix (now part of Mylan), Teva Daniel Norris Jersey , Krka and Lupin, are involved in a series of deals aimed at protecting Servier's bestselling blood pressure medicine perindopril from price competition in the EU.


The strategy used by Servier is implemented through a technology acquisition and a series of patent settlements with generic rivals.


"Servier had a strategy to systematically buy out any competitive threats to make sure that they stayed out of the market," European Commission Vice-President Joaquin Almunia, the commission's competition policy chief Cameron Maybin Jersey , said in a statement. "Such behavior is clearly anti-competitive and abusive."


Perindopril is a blockbuster blood pressure control medicine and used to be Servier's best-selling product.


Almunia said competitors cannot agree to share markets or market rents instead of competing, even when these agreements are in the form of patent settlements. "Such practices directly harm patients, national health systems and taxpayers," he said.


He urged pharmaceutical companies to focus their efforts on innovating and competing "rather than attempting to extract extra rents from patients."


Addressing a press conference on Wednesday Anthony Gose Jersey , he said Servier kept competitors off the market thanks to secondary patents -- that is to say, patents which did not protect the molecule itself but other aspects such as the manufacturing processes of the medicine.


To overcome the obstacle, generic companies relied on a new technology that would allow them to avoid Servier's secondary patents altogether.


"However, in 2004 Anibal Sanchez Jersey , Servier acquired this technology. Not to use it but only to prevent competitors from entering. As a result, a number of projects by generic makers were abandoned and market entry was delayed," said Almunia.


Every time a generic company came close to the market, Servier managed to enter into a deal Alex Avila Jersey , for example, by paying the generic companies to make sure that it would stay outside the market, according to the European Commission.


Right after the patent was annulled, prices of generic perindopril dropped by as much as 90 percent.


"For four years Alan Trammell Jersey , patients and national health systems were deprived of the benefits of competition, meaning earlier access to a cheaper version of the medicine," Almunia said.


He said that patent settlements should not be misused