In a statement, Novartis said it had been cooperating with the investigations since 2005 and had already corrected its promotional practices.
Aggressive sales and promotional practices have helped expand the use of powerful new antipsychotic drugs for children and the elderly.
"Food pricing, presentation and the depiction of promotional practices is a crucial issue for retailers, and in turn, consumers".
Ray Kerins, a Pfizer spokesman, said the company had previously disclosed that it was cooperating with a government review of Wyeth's promotional practices involving Rapamune.
The CMA has not ruled on whether supermarkets' pricing and promotional practices have breached consumer law, however, saying this is a matter for the courts.
Already, both Bayer and the Lilly-ICOS venture have received letters from the F.D.A. warning them to stop certain promotional practices that the agency said were illegal.
It wants businesses to cut out potentially misleading promotional practices such as "was/now" offers, where a product is on sale at a discounted price for longer than the higher price applied.
"The CMA's examination of the market, following the supercomplaint, found that supermarkets generally take compliance seriously, but there were some promotional practices that could mislead shoppers," said Michael Grenfell, the CMA's executive director of enforcement.
Donna Sokolsky Burke, co-founder of Spark PR, another influential firm in San Francisco, acknowledges that the advent of social networks has upended all the traditional marketing and promotional practices that once helped make Silicon Valley, well, Silicon Valley.
