Attorney General Aaron M. Frey announced two significant cooperation agreements and settlements with Heritage Pharmaceuticals and a second corporation totaling $49.1 million. The agreements resolve allegations that both companies engaged in widespread, long-running conspiracies to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unreasonably restrain trade of numerous generic prescription drugs. As part of their settlement agreements, both companies have agreed to cooperate in the ongoing multistate litigations led by Connecticut against 30 corporate defendants and 25 individual executives. Both companies have further agreed to a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws. The $10 million settlement with Heritage will be filed today in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut in Hartford. A settlement with the second corporation for $39.1 million and will be finalized and filed in the U.S. District Court in the near future. The name of the second corporation will be disclosed once the settlement is filed.
The settlements come as the states prepare for the first trial to be held in Hartford, Connecticut.
If consumers purchased a generic prescription drug manufactured by Heritage or the forthcoming second corporation between 2010 and 2018, they may be eligible for compensation. To determine eligibility, call 1-866-290-0182 (Toll-Free), email info@AGGenericDrugs.com or visit www.AGGenericDrugs.com.
“While too many Mainers struggle with prescription costs, these defendants colluded to make themselves rich and made it harder for consumers to access critical health care,” said Attorney General Frey. “This settlement brings some measure of accountability and it is one way in which I am working with attorneys general across the national to tackle high prescription drug prices.”
The cases all stem from an investigation built on evidence from several cooperating witnesses at the core of the conspiracy, a massive document database of over 20 million documents, and a phone records database containing millions of call detail records and contact information for over 600 sales and pricing individuals in the generics industry. The complaints lay out an interconnected web of industry executives where these competitors met with each other during industry dinners, "girls’ nights out", lunches, cocktail parties, golf outings and communicated via frequent telephone calls, emails and text messages that sowed the seeds for their illegal agreements. Throughout the complaints, defendants use terms like "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. Among the records obtained by the States is a two-volume notebook containing the contemporaneous notes of one of the States’ cooperators that memorialized his discussions during phone calls with competitors and internal company meetings over a period of several years.
Beginning in 2016, the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office and a coalition of nearly all states and territories filed three antitrust complaints. The first Complaint included Heritage and 17 other corporate Defendants, two individual Defendants in reference to 15 generic drugs. Two former executives from Heritage Pharmaceuticals, Jeffery Glazer and Jason Malek, have since entered into settlement agreements. The second Complaint was filed in 2019 against Teva Pharmaceuticals and 19 of the nation’s largest generic drug manufacturers. It also named 16 individual senior executive Defendants. The third complaint, scheduled to be tried first, focuses on 80 topical generic drugs that account for billions of dollars of sales in the United States. It names 26 corporate defendants and 10 individual defendants. Six additional pharmaceutical executives have entered into settlement agreements with the States and have been cooperating to support the States’ claims in all three cases.
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico also joined in today’s announcement.
Original source can be found here.