OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday 10.30am.
THE Competition Board is planning to launch a probe into a number of pharmaceutical manfacturing concerns following complaints that they are engaged in restrictive practices after setting up exclusive distribution channels.
Business Day reports that according to the complaints, International Healthcare Distributors and Synergistic Alliance Investments IHD was established five years ago and owned by a number of large pharmaceutical manufacturing fims. It distrubutes, amoung others, the products of Roche, Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Bayer and Novartis. SAI, established more recently, has five key shareholders: Glaxo Wellcome, SmithKline Beecham, South African Druggists’ Pharmacare, Pfizer and Warner Lambert.
In the complaints to be examined by the Competition Board, the drug manufacturers are accused of bypassing the wholesale network by distrubuing their productus through IHD and SAI directly to retail outlets.
The United Pharmaceutical Distributors, which lodged a formal complaint last year, claims that SAI and IHD control the distibution of 70,1% of all pharmaceutical products to the private sector. IHD is believed to control abouth 32% of the market.
UPD has told the Competition Board that IHD is able to increase prices and offer sub-standard service, as pharmacists are without any alternative means to buy their products.