Commission closes Sanofi disparagement case with commitments

The Commission has today (14 October 2026) accepted binding commitments from Sanofi S.A. (Sanofi) which address the Commission’s preliminary concerns that Sanofi may be dominant in Germany and France for enhanced flu vaccines and has been disparaging its competitor, Seqirus UK Ltd (Seqirus). The adoption of the decision is not a finding of infringement but means that the Commission will close its case as there are no longer grounds for it to take action in light of the resolution via commitments.

This is the third disparagement case that the Commission has concluded in recent years and the second closed with commitments – the Commission accepted binding commitments from Vifor in July 2024 (see our blog here for details) and issued an infringement decision against Teva in October 2024 (see our blog here for details) (the later also covered alleged misuse of divisional patents).

Background and Commission’s concerns

Sanofi supplies, among other products, an enhanced flu vaccine (Efluelda) which is specifically designed to protect people over 60 years old from flu. It competes with Seqirus that also produces an enhanced flu vaccine (Fluad).

The Commission preliminarily found that Sanofi may be dominant in the market for enhanced flu vaccines in Germany and France and that since 2024 it may have pursued a misleading communication campaign against Seqirus aimed at health-care professionals. In particular, that Sanofi may have:

• Claimed that there was evidence that Fluad’s vaccine had a weaker performance even though public heath bodies in France and Germany deemed the evidence for both products to be comparably strong;
• Incorrectly suggested that Efluelda would be the only vaccine recommended or designed for the elderly which misrepresented the national vaccination recommendations; and
• Incorrectly claimed that its rival’s product, Fluad’s, recommendation from the Germany public health body remained subject to unresolved scientific objections when in fact these objections had been discarded on scientific grounds.

The Commission’s preliminary assessment was that such behaviour could be objectively misleading, may be capable of excluding Sanofi’s competitor, that there was no objective justification for Sanofi’s behaviour and as such it could amount to an abuse of a dominant position.

The commitments

After a six week public consultation which ended on 21 August 2026, the Commission has accepted the following commitments from Sanofi:

• Until March 2030, when communicating about the enhanced flu vaccine with French and German health care professionals (HCPs) to not cast doubt on the national immunisation technical advisory groups’ (NITAGs’) recommendations, portray Fluad as inferior in any way (unless supported by reliable comparative studies) or suggest that the evidence supporting Fluad is weaker
• For four years, to include a prominent citation of the German NITAGs’ recommendation in the relevant German marketing material
• For two years, to state on its French and German websites that the respective NITAGs’ recommend Efluelda and Fluad equally for elderly people. Sanofi will also reach out directly to HCPs and KOLs in Germany who it had previously contacted to reiterate this
• Amend its marketing materials so that they are compliant with the commitments and conduct compliance training with the relevant senior management and sales staff
• Appoint a monitoring trustee to review Sanofi’s marketing materials on an annual basis, act as a contact point for Seqirus and report to the Commission on Sanofi’s compliance with the commitments for the duration of the commitments.

Sanofi adjusted its initial draft commitments following the Commission’s market testing in particular by extending its proactive outreach to include KOLs in Germany who Sanofi had previously communicated with about Fluad.

If Sanofi fails to comply with the commitments, the Commission may impose a fine of up to 10% of its total annual turnover without having to find an infringement of EU competition law, or a periodic penalty payment of 5% per day of its daily turnover for each day of non-compliance.

Key takeaways

The pattern of pharmaceutical disparagement cases that have been pursued in recent years suggests that this continues to be an area of key focus for the Commission.

The main obligations of the commitments are (i) to restore competition by undoing any potential effects of previous disparaging messages made by Sanofi (such as clear messaging of the position on its German and French websites and in communications to HCPs) and (ii) to prohibit further messaging that may be disparaging (such as monitoring of future promotional material and training of staff for a period of time). In this respect, they are on a par with the Vifor commitments.

Where they depart from the Vifor commitments is in duration – the Vifor commitments are for a period of ten years whereas the commitments offered by Sanofi are for less than half that duration (until March 2030). However, following a public consultation (which only resulted in minor adjustments to the scope), it has been concluded that they effectively address the Commission’s concerns. The differences serve as a reminder that what constitutes effective commitments will very much depend on the specific context of the market and the conduct concerned.