The Competition Commission is investigating Pfizer for charging excessive prices for a lung cancer drug that is not registered for sale in SA. On Tuesday‚ the commission stated it was investigating three pharmaceutical companies for “excessive prices” for cancer drugs. But the commission made several mistakes‚ including getting the name of Pfizer’s drug wrong. The commission did not note that all drug prices are approved and signed off by the medicines pricing committee within the Department of Health. The commission also said it had information that gives “rise to reasonable suspicion that Pfizer has and continues to engage in excessive pricing conduct in provision of crizotinib”. Pfizer confirmed that crizotinib is not registered in SA. An unregistered drug cannot be sold in the country and will not have a price. The commission complained about its R152‚000 price saying it was in possession of information that this treatment was “unaffordable”. Pfizer denied this price. Wits oncol...
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