The scale of CMA misunderstanding must be stupendous, given that the watchdog hit Pfizer for £84.2 million for unfair pricing and Flynn £5.2m for breaking competition law.

Pfizer sold its rights to market phenytoin sodium anti-epilepsy drugs under the brand name Epanutin in Britain to Flynn four years ago.

Flynn was then able to exploit a “debranding” loophole to sidestep an agreed pricing scheme between the NHS and the pharmaceuticals industry to send prices for phenytoin sodium through the roof.

It is difficult for most people to quantify a price rise of the scale of up to 2,600 per cent, but the upshot was an invoice to the NHS of £50m in 2013 compared with £2m in 2012.

CMA insistence that these partners in infamy must reduce the drug’s price to the NHS must be supported.

No matter how Pfizer and Flynn dress up their collusion to fleece the NHS as somehow embodying “integrity” and compliance with established competition law, it amounts, in reality, to demanding money with menaces.

The NHS had no room for manoeuvre due to the lack of a compatible alternative medication.

The arrogance of these transnational corporations in robbing the NHS blind and, when caught out, to demand backing from the courts, illustrates the need to break big pharma’s power by supplanting its hold on production and marketing of medications.