Brussels  - Pharmaceutical companies in Europe have regularly tried to block cheaper products made by their rivals, costing consumers and taxpayers some 3 billion euros (3.9 billion dollars) in extra bills, European Union officials said Friday.

"There is evidence that originator companies have engaged in practices with the objective of delaying or blocking market entry of competing medicines," the EU's executive, the European Commission, said as it released a report on the industry.

"Additional savings of around 3 billion euros would have been possible on (a sample of medicines in 17 countries) over this period (2000-07) if generic medicines had entered the market without delay," the commission said in a statement.

According to a preliminary study by the commission, which oversees the EU's rules on fair trade, major pharmaceutical companies have set up an arsenal of policies aimed at stopping rivals bringing cheaper versions of their drugs to the market.

Tactics include patenting critical formulae many times over - 1,300 in a single case - to block copies, launching large numbers of patent cases to forestall rival drugs and "intervening" in national drug-approval schemes to block rivals, the statement said. (dpa)