Alliance Boots has launched a European legal action to defend its new drug distribution deal with the American pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer, The Times has learnt.
UniChem, the drug wholesaling arm of the merged Alliance Boots group, filed an application last week in a Brussels commercial court against the European Association of Pharmaceutical Full-Line Wholesalers.
The action is designed to overturn efforts by the wholesalers group to block a deal struck earlier this year between Alliance Boots and Pfizer that would make it the sole distributor for all Pfizer medicines in the UK.
The European wholesalers, along with other UK and European drug wholesalers and more than 40 British MPs, who have signed an early-day motion, want to stop the agreement. They claim it raises competition concerns and poses a threat to patients by increasing the risk of delays in the delivery of vital medicines. Pfizer and UniChem are contesting the claims and argue the deal will protect patients by preventing counterfeit drugs entering the supply chain.
The wholesalers group has written to the Government to express its opposition but UniChem, which is a member of the organisation, claims it has acted unconstitutionally in doing so.
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The legal case follows a row between UniChem and other members of the wholesalers group over the proposals, which many European wholesalers view as a threat to the industry’s future.
Stefano Pessina, executive deputy chairman of Alliance Boots, who is also the company’s biggest shareholder with 15 per cent, resigned from wholesalers group’s steering committee on Tuesday in protest at the group’s opposition to the deal.