GSK accused of paying off rivals

The UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has accused GlaxoSmithKline of paying generic manufacturers to delay the production of a generic equivalent of its antidepressant paroxetine, which it makes in Cork.

The OFT alleged that GSK concluded anti-competitive agreements with Alpharma, Generics (UK) and Norton Healthcare over the supply of paroxetine — a top-selling medicine sold by GSK under the brand name Seroxat.

The most recent figures show that in Ireland, the primary care reimbursement service paid €1.8m to fill over 100,000 prescriptions for paroxetine in 2011.