Opening remarks by Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera on the Commission decision to accept commitments by Sanofi

Good morning, everybody.

I'm happy to see you here to discuss a topic that speaks very much to people, to every citizen in Europe.

You know that we work hard to ensure affordable medicines. We also work hard to ensure reliable information and to fight against disinformation. These two topics are connected in today's case.

Autumn has arrived in Brussels, even if it is a sunny day. And autumn means influenza. It means that many vulnerable people may face health difficulties. In some cases, not being vaccinated, means people dying during autumn and winter.

So yes, these are the days when we all, including myself, by the way, are turning to our doctors and pharmacies to look for advice on flu vaccination. This matters because, every year, vaccination helps prevent premature deaths and ensures the wellbeing of our citizens. Directly connected to that, people who are not vaccinated may face illness and hospitalisation because of their weaker health status.

This is why our doctors, our pharmacists and, ultimately, our citizens must be able to trust the information they receive about the type of vaccine they may be using.

And reliable information means clear, evidence-based information available to all. It means information supported by public health agencies. They identify where the evidence is sufficiently clear and established to confirm the reliability of medicines marketed in Europe.

There should be no room for misleading information or for companies to distort public health recommendations to promote their own products. That is not good practice.  We need to fight against that practice.

Such conduct would be problematic as a general matter. But it can also constitute an abuse of dominance when this type of misleading information comes from a company with a significant share of, and a strong position in, a given market.

This is exactly why the Commission opened an antitrust investigation into Sanofi last July. We had concerns that Sanofi could have launched a misleading communication campaign to disparage a rival so-called enhanced flu vaccine. This is a vaccine modified to improve its effectiveness in certain patient groups, for example, older people and people with pre-existing conditions that weaken their immune responses.

Specifically, Sanofi may have disparaged Fluad, the flu vaccine produced by its competitor, Seqirus. This could benefit Sanofi's own enhanced flu vaccine, called Efluelda.

This campaign seemed to have included possibly misleading messages to healthcare professionals in both France and Germany. Specifically, these messages seemed to question the strength of the scientific evidence behind the rival vaccine, Fluad, and to misrepresent national vaccination recommendations.

They challenged information from the public authorities dealing with these issues, suggesting that they recommended only Efluelda, when national vaccination recommendations had actually put both vaccines on an equal footing.

To its credit, Sanofi has engaged helpfully with the Commission since the beginning of our investigation. I appreciate this, and I think it has helped us reach a solution in what I could call record time.

This engagement has allowed us to reach a very fast and effective outcome, with immediate effects for healthcare systems, within a year of our unannounced inspection carried out in October 2025.

I think this is good news for patients, good news for healthcare professionals and public health authorities, and good news for competition enforcement. It shows why competition enforcement matters in practice.

As I said, affordable medicines and reliable information are key for society. These issues can also interact with antitrust and competition policies.

To close our investigation, Sanofi has offered two commitments.

Firstly, Sanofi has committed to a corrective communication campaign rectifying its possible disparaging behaviour.

Secondly, Sanofi has committed to refrain from such behaviour in the future.

By closing the case with commitments, we enable a quick, effective and pragmatic improvement in Sanofi's conduct.

Today's decision is positive on several levels.

First, it makes sure that competition works in a sector that is literally vital to people's lives. We know from experience that, when competition is distorted, patients and health systems may pay the price.

Second, it builds on our previous decisions in the Vifor and Teva Copaxone cases, increasing predictability and legal certainty with an additional case showing how the Commission assesses potential disparagement conduct. This helps deter and prevent similar cases in the future.

But there is a bigger picture here too.

Pharmaceuticals are a strategic sector for Europe, and the scale of public spending shows why. Medicines account for around 13% of health spending across the European Union. We are talking about around €100 billion spent annually on medicines in Germany and France alone.

It is a very significant market and accounts for a substantial share of public spending in our Member States. We want Europe to remain a place where companies invest, innovate and develop the medicines of tomorrow, whether they are large pharmaceutical companies or smaller biotech firms.

This means enabling innovation and technology partnerships while preserving competition for the medicines of the future. That can provide additional incentives for companies to keep improving the quality of their medicines.

It means allowing companies to merge while keeping a close eye on acquisitions that eliminate future competition, as you know well.

Importantly, it means insisting that companies win on the merits of their products, without discouraging their competitors just because they are small.

Our main message today is that effective competition enforcement can deliver better products in the pharmaceutical sector, where innovation is so important and rewarded.

Markets need to stay open. Patients should trust that the medicines available to them are there because they are the best, backed by public health agencies, and not because competition has been blocked and new entrants have been unable to challenge traditional incumbents.

Thanks a lot.