States charge six generic drug companies with price fixing
December 15, 2016
Twenty attorneys general filed a lawsuit Thursday against six generic drug-makers alleging the companies conspired to artificially inflate and manipulate prices and reduce competition in the United States for two generic drugs: doxycycline hyclate delayed release and glyburide.
Doxycycline hyclate delayed release is an antibiotic and glyburide is an oral diabetic medication.
The companies are Heritage Pharmaceuticals, Auribindo Pharma USA, Citron Pharma, Mayne Pharma (USA), Mylan Pharmaceuticals, and Teva Pharmaceuticals USA.
The states allege that the companies’ conduct violated federal antitrust laws, and they asked the court to prevent the companies from engaging in illegal, anticompetitive behavior.
“Generic drugs account for 88 percent of all prescriptions written in the U.S. and are intended to save customers and our healthcare system billions of dollars every year,” said Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt. “However, when drug-makers allegedly conspire together, this undermines legitimate competition.”
The investigation, which is ongoing for other generic drugs, uncovered evidence of a broad, well-coordinated and long-running series of conspiracies to fix prices and allocate markets.
The lawsuit alleges that the price fixing was conceived and carried out by senior drug company executives and their marketing and sales executives. The defendants routinely coordinated their schemes through direct interaction with their competitors at industry trade shows, customer conferences, and other events, as well as through email, phone, and text messages, the lawsuit alleges.
States participating lawsuit are Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington.
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