Swiss raid stomach ache drug ingredient makers in competition probe

[September 19, 2019]  ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland's COMCO competition watchdog on Thursday conducted dawn raids of several makers and distributors of a drug ingredient for medicines against stomach pain, citing suspicions of unlawful price and market sharing ingredients.

"COMCO suspects that manufacturers and distributors of the active pharmaceutical ingredient Scopolamine Butylbromide have concluded unlawful price and market sharing agreements," the agency said. "There are reasonable grounds to suspect that the undertakings have kept the prices of this pharmaceutical ingredient high and that they have allocated markets. The investigation shall examine whether there are indeed unlawful restrictions of competition."

COMCO declined to name the makers of the drug ingredients, but said domestic and foreign companies were under scrutiny.

(Reporting by John Miller)

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