Sanofi avoids fine as EU accepts offer to stop disparaging rival vaccine

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, Oct 14 (Reuters) - French pharmaceutical company Sanofi SASY.PA has staved off a potential hefty fine after EU antitrust regulators on Wednesday accepted its offer to stop disparaging a rival flu vaccine.

The company found itself in the European Commission's crosshairs earlier this year as regulators opened an investigation into whether it disparaged a vaccine called "Fluad" made by CSL Seqirus CSL.AX, primarily in France and Germany, which competes with its "Efluelda" flu vaccine.

Sanofi subsequently proposed a series of measures to address the EU competition enforcer's concerns which could have resulted in charges and a fine of as much as 10% of its global annual turnover.

"There should be no room for misleading information or for companies to distort public health recommendations to promote their own products," EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera told a press conference.

The Commission said Sanofi will not use promotional materials aimed at healthcare professionals in Germany and France to criticise national vaccination recommendations nor highlight negatively the rival vaccine or that its own product is safer. This pledge is valid until 2030.

It will also publish in the next two years a statement on its German and French websites acknowledging and clarifying that the applicable national vaccination recommendations treat Fluad and Efluelda as equivalent in protecting elderly people against the flu.