Photo Courtesy of FDA
““These companies intentionally fixed prices on a range of drugs, taking gross advantage of millions of individuals who depend on these medications to stay in good health,” NY Attorney General James said.
By Forum Staff
New York Attorney General Tish James on Thursday joined a 44-state coalition led by Connecticut AG William Tong in a motion to unseal their complaint against 20 of the nation’s largest generic drug manufacturers.
Filed on May 10 in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, the complaint alleges that Teva, Sandoz, Mylan, Pfizer, and 16 other generic drug manufacturers engaged in a “broad, coordinated and systematic conspiracy” to fix prices, allocate markets, and rig bids for more than 100 different generic drugs. The drugs span all types, including tablets, capsules, suspensions, creams, gels, and ointments; and classes, including statins, ace inhibitors, beta blockers, antibiotics, anti-depressants, contraceptives, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. They treat a range of diseases and conditions from basic infections to diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, HIV, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and more.
In some instances, the complaint notes, the coordinated price increases were more than 1,000 percent.
The complaint also lays out an interconnected web of industry executives where these competitors who met with each other during industry dinners, lunches, cocktail parties, golf outings and communicated via frequent telephone calls, emails, and text messages sowing the seeds for their illegal agreements. Throughout the complaint, defendants are described as using terms such as “fair share,” “playing nice in the sandbox,” and “responsible competitor” to describe how they unlawfully discouraged competition, raised prices, and enforced an ingrained culture of collusion.
“The evidence outlined in this lawsuit shows an ongoing scheme to cheat consumers by padding the pockets of pharmaceutical companies—and the American public deserves to see that evidence,” James said. “These companies intentionally fixed prices on a range of drugs, taking gross advantage of millions of individuals who depend on these medications to stay in good health. We will continue to advocate for the release of this information and to hold these companies accountable for this deceptive and dangerous behavior.”
According to James, the complaint is the second to be filed in an ongoing, expanding investigation of the generic drug industry. The first complaint was similarly filed under seal initially, and later released in full in October 2017 with permission from the Court.
Then-Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen led 45 other attorneys general in a wide-ranging multistate antitrust investigation of the generic drug industry. According to Jepsen, the alleged anticompetitive conduct—including efforts to fix and maintain prices, allocate markets and otherwise thwart competition—resulted in artificially increased prices for generic drugs reimbursed by federal and state healthcare programs, such as Medicaid, and raised the coverage costs for employer-sponsored health plans and out-of-pocket costs for consumers.
“Generic drugs are a multibillion-dollar industry,” Jepsen said, “but it’s an industry based on products that people need and rely upon every single day for their health and well-being. The allegations of our complaint are shocking, and the depth and breadth of the conspiracies alleged are mind-blowing. The harm caused to America’s economy and households is real—additional financial burdens for patients paying for needed medications, higher premiums as health insurers pass higher drug costs onto consumers and greater costs to cash-strapped states paying for care through public health insurance programs.”
