Maureen Schrijen wins two awards with thesis on excessive prices in the pharmaceutical sector

Maureen Scrhijen wint twee prijzen met haar scriptie
Maureen Schrijen studeerde cum lade af in Europees Recht aan de Universiteit Utrecht.

"Schrijen's thesis responds very well to the current debate, in the Netherlands and elsewhere, on the pricing of pharmaceutical products and on various ways in which the central government and healthcare insurance companies can seek to regulate these prices." A lot of praise from the jury at the Dutch Congres Ontwikkelingen Mededingingsrecht 2018, where Maureen Schrijen's work of research was picked as the winning thesis.

Maureen Schrijen, currently a trainee at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, won both at this conference as on 26 September at the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Market an award for "best thesis". Her work is entitled Excessive prices in the pharmaceutical sector: is competition law the best remedy?  According to the jury at the Congres Ontwikkelingen Mededingingsrecht Schrijen gives us  a thorough description of the way in which concepts such as market definition, dominance and abusive excessive pricing can be applied in the pharmaceutical sector, she describes the main cases where excessive pricing was applied to pharmaceutical products in the EU and which policy lessons can be drawn from these cases.

Price regulation and abuse prohibition 

The jury went on: "Stepping over the boundaries of competition law, Schrijen then went on to compare the effectiveness of the abuse prohibition as a regulatory tool with alternative tools, such as price regulation, adjustments in the patent protection system and compulsory licensing. The jury especially liked the combination of a very thorough competition law analysis with a discussion of other policy instruments and is happy to award the first place to Ms. Schrijen."

Master's programme European Law

Schrijen wrote her awarded thesis for the master's programme European Law at Utrecht University and graduated cum laude in June 2018. Her supervisors were Prof. dr. Anna Gerbrandy and Dr. Salvatore Nicolosi. Before that, Maureen Schrijen also graduated cum laude at Staats- en bestuursrecht in Utrecht.