AOP Health wins EUR 112M quantum award in Vienna; 900% overpricing confirmed.

AOP Health wins EUR 112M quantum award in Vienna; 900% overpricing confirmed.

AOP Health: ICC Arbitral Tribunal Issues Quantum Award for AOP Health in BESREMI® Arbitration

Quantum Award in Favor of AOP Health in BESREMi® Case

Vienna, 07.08.2026. An ICC Arbitral Tribunal has awarded AOP Orphan Pharmaceuticals GmbH (“AOP Health”) a total of about EUR 112 Mio in a quantum award issued in the ongoing arbitration proceedings with PharmaEssentia Corp. (“PharmaEssentia”) concerning BESREMi® (ropeginterferon alfa-2b). The award quantifies AOP Health’s damage claims for PharmaEssentia’s intentional breaches at ca. EUR 82 Mio. It also awards AOP Health ca. EUR 31 Mio plus interest as reimbursement for AOP Health overpayments made to PharmaEssentia as a result of excessive pricing in the years 2019-2022. The Tribunal thereby confirmed that PharmaEssentia has been overcharging AOP Health by up to 900 % over these years. The Tribunal affirmed AOP Health’s valid set-off of the profit-sharing payments amount owed to PharmaEssentia of approximately EUR 17 Mio against AOP Health’s substantially exceeding damages claims. This means that AOP Health shall not make any payment to PharmaEssentia. Interest on AOP Health’s claims will continue to accrue until PharmaEssentia has made payment. All of PharmaEssentia’s remaining claims of the quantum stage of the proceedings were dismissed.

The decision follows the partial final award received in February 2025, in which the ICC Arbitral Tribunal found, among other things, that PharmaEssentia had intentionally breached its contractual obligations and was liable for several claims arising out of the parties’ licensing agreement. The quantum award now determines the amounts due in relation to these claims.

Tribunal confirms PharmaEssentia’s excessive pricing of up to 900%

Applying the Tribunal’s reasoning in the quantum award to the product deliveries for the years 2023-2025, PharmaEssentia has overcharged AOP Health by another ca. EUR 65 Mio. After set-off with profit sharing amounts for these years, PharmaEssentia will still owe a substantial amount to AOP Health. In short, AOP Health owes no payment to PharmaEssentia. Meanwhile, PharmaEssentia’s liability towards AOP Health is currently in the three-digit EUR million range.

AOP Health welcomes the decision, which the company sees as a further confirmation of its position and its conduct in the proceedings. The company remains focused on ensuring stable and sustainable access to BESREMi® for patients in need. In its seventh year after its approval by European Medicines Agency (“EMA”), AOP Health has successfully made BESREMi® available to an estimated 12,600 patients in AOP Health’s licensed territory.

Dr. Rudolf Widmann, one of the two founders of AOP Health, says:

After eight years of legal dispute, we welcome the tribunal’s decision because it reduces uncertainty. This award gives us a stronger basis to continue our mission: developing and making available medicines that address high unmet medical needs.

As with the previous award, PharmaEssentia may seek a limited review of the quantum award before the competent German courts. Proceedings concerning the review of the February 2025 merit award which was confirmed by the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt in April 2026 are still pending before the German Federal Court of Justice.

The conflict concerns BESREMi®, a treatment for rare blood cancers, particularly polycythemia vera. AOP Health acquired the rights for the development and commercialization of BESREMi® in the European, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and Middle Eastern markets from PharmaEssentia in 2009.

Since 2017, PharmaEssentia has repeatedly attempted to terminate its agreement with AOP Health regarding BESREMi®. In October 2020, an ICC Arbitral Tribunal rejected these attempts and awarded AOP Health damages, while dismissing PharmaEssentia’s counterclaims. Subsequent set-aside proceedings confirmed the award in its essentials, while identifying procedural issues relating to the quantification of damages.

In November 2020, PharmaEssentia initiated a further legal action against AOP Health, alleging damage claims. AOP Health in turn claimed damages for delays in BESREMi®’s European approval caused by PharmaEssentia and for the use of AOP Health’s clinical trial data in connection with PharmaEssentia’s U.S. marketing authorization. In February 2025, the ICC Arbitral Tribunal issued a partial final award in AOP Health’s favor on liability and dismissed PharmaEssentia’s liability claims in its entirety. The newly received quantum award now specifies the amounts due for the claims upheld in the partial final award.

BESREMi® is the first interferon that was approved for polycythemia vera, a myelo­proliferative neoplasm (MPN), indicated in the European Union as monotherapy in adults for treatment of polycythemia vera without symptomatic enlarged spleen. Its overall safety and efficacy were demonstrated in multiple clinical studies.

BESREMi® (ropeginterferon alfa-2b) is a long-acting, mono-pegylated proline interferon (ATC L03AB15). It is administered once every 2 weeks initially, or up to every 4 weeks after stabilization of blood values. BESREMi® is designed to be self-administered subcutaneously with a pre-filled pen.

Please visit: European Medicines Agency Summary of Product Characteristics for: BESREMi®

AOP Health Group is a global pharmaceutical enterprise with headquarters in Vienna. Its mission is to address high unmet medical needs through impactful, science-driven therapies and care models. Since 1996, AOP Health has pioneered research where limited therapies exist, to develop solutions for patients with rare diseases and severe conditions in niche therapeutic areas. Guided by the principle “Needs. Science. Trust.” the AOP Health Group demonstrates its strong commitment to patients and healthcare professionals through innovation and long-term partnerships, to improve patient outcomes worldwide.

Head of Corporate Communications nina.roth[at]aop-health . com

Photocredit Stock-Photo: AdobeStock_902895346 Photocredit Portrait: AOP Health

ICC Arbitral Tribunal Issues Quantum Award for AOP Health in BESREMi® Proceedings

This website uses cookies or similar technologies to be able to offer certain services. All information about the services used can be found in the respective category. In addition to the technically necessary services, you can allow all services, reject all services or make and save your individual settings under “ Cookie settings ” at any time.

These cookies are necessary for the basic functions of the website.

PHPSESSID This cookie saves your current session related to PHP applications, ensuring that all functions of this website based on the PHP programming language can be fully displayed. storage duration: Session

fe_typo_user Used by TYPO3 as function for user administration. storage duration: Session

page-notice–hide Used for displaying the hint information function. storage duration: Session

geoip_country_redirect This cookie is used to analyse your IP address and automatically redirect you to the appropriate country version of our website. storage duration: Session

Required to obtain consent for certain cookies and therefore for the use of certain tools.

cookieUser Serves to recognize the browser and its cookie history (consent or rejection of certain cookies with date and time) using an anonymized identification number. storage duration: 1 year

fcc_cookie_consent For displaying the cookie consent banner. storage duration: 1 year

fcc_cookie_consent_minified For minimizing the confirmed cookie consent banner. storage duration: 1 year

cookie_matomo Stores consent to the use of Matomo Analytics. storage duration: 1 year

cookie_ytvideo Stores consent to display YouTube videos. storage duration: 1 year

If you activate Matomo, we can analyze your use of our website in order to adapt and further improve our services. The following cookies may be set:

pk_ses Short-lived cookies used to temporarily store data about the visit. storage duration: 30 minutes

pk_id Used to store some details about the user, such as the unique visitor ID. storage duration: 13 months

Enables the evaluation of visitor information in order to optimize the website and its offer. Learn more about LinkedIn’s privacy policy .

AnalyticsSyncHistory This cookie is used to store when a synchronization with the “lms_analytics cookie” has taken place. storage duration: 30 days

bcookie This cookie is a browser identifier. It is used to uniquely identify devices that access LinkedIn in order to detect misuse of the platform. storage duration: 1 year

li_gc This cookie is used to store the consent of guests to the use of non-mandatory cookies storage duration: 6 months

li_sugr This cookie is used to determine probabilistic matches of a user’s identity. storage duration: 90 days

lidc This cookie ensures the selection of the data center. storage duration: 24 hours

UserMatchHistory This cookie is used to synchronize the IDs of LinkedIn Ads. storage duration: 30 days

bscookie This cookie remembers that a logged-in user has been verified with two-factor authentication and has previously logged in storage duration: 1 year

VID This is the ID that is assigned to visitors to a LinkedIn microsite. It is used to determine conversions for the purpose of lead generation. storage duration: 1 year

s_ips This cookie tracks the percentage of the page viewed. storage duration: session

liap This cookie is used by domains without the suffix “www” to display the login status of a member. storage duration: 1 year

s_pltp This cookie provides the value of the page name (URL) for use by Adobe Analytics. storage duration: session

gpv_pn This cookie is used to store and retrieve pages previously visited in Adobe Analytics. storage duration: 6 months

li_mc This cookie is used as a temporary cache to avoid database queries for a member’s consent to the use of non-mandatory cookies. It is also used to have consent information available on the customer site in order to enforce consent on the customer site. storage duration: 6 months

mbox This cookie is used by Adobe Target to analyze the relevance of online content. storage duration: 180 days

s_sq This cookie is used by Adobe Analytics to store information about the previous link that a user clicked on. storage duration: session

at_check This cookie is used to determine whether a visitor has accepted the use of cookies for Adobe Target. storage duration: session

s_tp This cookie tracks the percentage of the page viewed. storage duration: session

lang This cookie stores a user’s language setting and ensures that LinkedIn.com is displayed in the language that the user has selected in their settings. storage duration: session

s_cc This cookie is used to determine whether cookies are activated for Adobe Analytics. storage duration: session

dfpfpt This cookie serves as a unique user ID to prevent misuse of LinkedIn payment processes. storage duration: 2 years

lms_analytics This cookie is used to identify logged-out LinkedIn members for analytical purposes. storage duration: 30 days

s_tslv This cookie is used to store the time elapsed since the last visit in Adobe Analytics. storage duration: 6 months

lms_ads This cookie is used to identify logged-out LinkedIn members for LinkedIn advertisements. storage duration: 30 days

s_fid This is a unique identifier for Adobe Analytics. storage duration: 180 days

aam_uuid This cookie is used for ID synchronization with Adobe Audience Manager. storage duration: 30 days

_gcl_au This cookie is used to measure ad and campaign performance and conversion rates for Google ads on a visited website. storage duration: 3 months

s_ppv This cookie is used by Adobe Analytics to store and retrieve what percentage of a page has been viewed. storage duration: session

AMCVS_14215E3D5995 C57C0A495C55%40Adob eOrg This cookie indicates for the Ado