R (on the application of Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) v Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (the NHS Confederation (Employers) Company Ltd intervening) C-62/09, [2010] All ER (D) 142 (Apr)
Court of Justice of the European Union (Fourth Chamber) Judges Bonichot (President of Chamber), Toader (Rapporteur), Schiemann, Kuris and Bay Larsen22 April 2010
Article 94(1) of Parliament and Council Directive (EC) 2001/83 (the Directive) does not preclude financial incentive schemes implemented by national public health authorities in order to reduce their public health expenditure and designed to encourage, for the purpose of treating certain conditions, the prescription by doctors of specific named medicinal products containing an active substance which was different from the active substance of the medicinal product which was previously prescribed or which might have been prescribed but for such an incentive scheme.
In England and Wales, general practitioners and other health care professionals were granted specific powers to write prescriptions and, if they issued prescriptions funded by the NHS, they had to comply with NHS rules and prescription codes, as well as professional codes of conduct issued by the
