Teva Faces Turkish Antitrust Probe Over Patent Practices
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- Turkey's Competition Board (Rekabet Kurumu) launched an antitrust probe into Teva earlier this month, alleging the company manipulated the patent system and made misleading statements to health care authorities about rival drugs' safety and effectiveness.
- The Turkish regulator said Teva engaged in "various practices … that may have been aimed at making it more difficult for competitors to enter the market," according to the decision disclosed last Friday on its website.
- Teva confirmed the investigation resembles a 2022 European Commission probe that ended with the company paying a $503 million fine for delaying competition to its blockbuster Copaxone multiple sclerosis medicine.
- The European Commission case is currently under appeal before the European Court.
- Turkey's Competition Board did not name a specific drug in its probe.
Why it matters: Teva already paid a $503 million fine to the European Commission for similar conduct tied to Copaxone, and that case is still under appeal. A second jurisdiction pursuing comparable allegations signals expanding global regulatory scrutiny of Teva's patent strategies, and any new Turkish penalties would compound costs on top of the unresolved EU appeal while emboldening competitors' market-entry challenges.
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