July 29th 2026

By Ailsa Colquhoun

Court dismisses hydrocortisone pricing appeal

The Court of Appeal (CoA) has ruled that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) were right to conclude that Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK charged excessive and unfair prices for hydrocortisone tablets over a decade. 

In 2007, the drug cost less than £1 per pack. In 2008, Auden Mckenzie bought the licences for hydrocortisone tablets and began increasing prices. Over the next eight years, Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK (which took over Auden’s business in 2015) increased prices to over £70 per pack. NHS annual spending on the drug rose from around £500,000 in 2007 to over £80 million in 2016. The price increases did not reflect any increase in costs or investment in the drug, which was introduced in 1955. 

When other firms began to develop their own hydrocortisone tablets Auden/Actavis bought them off. This allowed it to delay competition that could have brought prices down. Although other firms did eventually enter the market, Actavis UK retained market power and was able to continue charging excessive and unfair prices.  

In July 2021, the CMA found that Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK had abused a dominant position by charging excessive and unfair prices for hydrocortisone tablets between 2008 and 2018. The CMA also found that Auden/Actavis had entered into anti-competitive agreements with its competitors Waymade and AMCo. The CMA imposed penalties totalling £266 million. 

In 2023, the CAT rejected the appeals of Auden Mckenzie and Actavis UK against the excessive and unfair pricing infringements. The CAT also upheld the CMA’s penalties for the abuses, subject to a £26 million reduction to the penalty for a former parent company to reflect a period when it did not control the business. 

The firms appealed to the Court of Appeal. The CoA has today dismissed the firms’ appeals against the CAT’s judgment, finding that none of their grounds of appeal ‘get near’ to displacing the CMA’s and the CAT’s conclusions on the infringements. 

The judgment follows the CoA ruling in favour of the CMA’s appeal of the CAT’s decision to overturn its finding of a market sharing agreement on procedural grounds. This means all the CMA’s findings of infringement against the firms have now been upheld on appeal.