Ms Jacquelyn Veraldi

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, European Union (EU) Member State health budgets were already under strain and the pace of pharmaceutical innovation was under scrutiny. One proposed tool to address these issues has been the enforcement of competition law, as suggested in the Commission’s 2020 Pharmaceutical Strategy. Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) has especially been invoked by competition authorities in this sector in recent years. However, no comprehensive research into the application of this prohibition in this sector has been conducted. This PhD thesis seeks to fill that gap, by asking how Article 102 TFEU has been and should be applied in the pharmaceutical sector. This question has two dimensions, the broader and the narrower. The broader focuses on the development of analytical taxonomies in respect to each element of Article 102 TFEU (market definition, dominance, and abuse). These findings can be used to systematise competition law analyses and future research. The narrower dimension of this thesis focuses on how this provision has been and should be applied to facilitate the core objectives of EU public pharmaceutical policy, i.e. affordability and innovativeness. The findings derived from this question are argued to influence the core objectives of the EU Pharmaceutical Strategy in direct and indirect ways.