US States allege 20 generic drugmakers fixed prices of generic drugs
pharmafile | May 13, 2019 | News story | Sales and Marketing | competition, generics, markets, price fixing, price-fixing, pricing
Forty-four US States have filed a lawsuit against 20 generic drugmakers – including Teva Pharmaceuticals – over allegations the firms fixed prices and stifled competition for generic meds.
The generic pharmaceutical companies are alleged to have engaged in criminal schemes to divide the market and avoid competition as part of an effort to illegally inflate the prices of generic drugs.
The lawsuit, filed by 44 US states in the US District Court in Connecticut, argues a long history of discreet agreements had inflated prices by as a much as 1000%.
With Teva at the centre of the conspiracy, the drugmakers colluded to raise prices on more than 100 generic drugs between July 2013 and January 2015.
“Rather than enter a particular generic drug market by competing on price in order to gain market share, competitors in the generic drug industry would systematically and routinely communicate with one another directly, divvy up customers to create an artificial equilibrium in the market, and then maintain anticompetitively high prices,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also points to 15 individuals as people who participated in the price fixing scheme on a day to day basis.
“The level of corporate greed alleged in this multistate lawsuit is heartless and unconscionable,” Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak said in a statement.
Teva responded in a statement: “The allegations in this new complaint, and in the litigation more generally, are just that – allegations. Teva continues to review the issue internally and has not engaged in any conduct that would lead to civil or criminal liability.”
Louis Goss
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