IMS Health faces legal challenge

Published: 28-May-2001


The European Commission has launched a fast-track legal procedure against the American company IMS Health (IMS), the world leader in data collection on pharmaceutical sales and prescriptions, over its refusal to allow rivals to copy its information-gathering system in Germany.

Brussels has sent IMS a statement of objections, with a view to imposing interim measures, that would allow its rivals NDC Health, also of the USA and AzyX Geopharma Services, of Belgium, to utilise its 1860 brick structure method. This creates small groups at pharmacies, at least three in number, so that effective regional trends can be identified, without the sales patterns of individual businesses being pinpointed, which would break German data protection laws.

When IMS's rivals entered the German market in 1999, they attempted to use this brick structure, but IMS claimed copyright at Frankfurt district court, which last year banned NDC and AzyX from using the 1860 brick structure 'or any other brick structure derived from it.' The Commission has concluded that this move is an abuse of a dominant position, making 'it impossible for new competitors to enter or stay in the market in question and is likely to cause serious and irreparable damage to the competitors.' It has launched legal proceedings seeking to force IMS to allow NDC and AzyX to use the system and compete fairly.

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