Coalition of States & Territories Seek Court Approval of 3 Settlements with Generic Drug Manufacturers
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown has joined a coalition of 45 states and territories – including Delaware – seeking court approval of three settlements – with Ascend Laboratories, Citron Pharma and Mayne Pharma – to resolve allegations that the generic drug manufacturers engaged in a widespread, long-running conspiracy to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition and retrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs.
Ascend and Mayne will pay a total of $1.5-million to the states. Citron’s settlement is only non-monetary as it has ceased business operations.
The states previously reached settlements with six other companies – totaling $496.5-million.
Additional information from AG Anthony Brown:
Ascend will pay $400,000 to the states. Mayne will pay $650,000. Citron’s settlement only includes non-monetary terms, as it has ceased business operations. As part of the settlement, the companies each agreed to meaningful injunctive terms, including a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws.
These latest settlements come as the states prepare for the first trial to be held in Hartford, Connecticut, in February 2027.
The states previously reached settlements with Sandoz, Glenmark, Lannett, Bausch, Apotex and Heritage, and Heritage’s parent company, Emcure, totaling $496.5 million.
If you purchased a generic prescription drug between May 2009 and December 2019, you may be eligible for compensation. To determine your eligibility, call 1-866-290-0182 (Toll-Free), email info@AGGenericDrugs.com or visit www.AGGenericDrugs.com. You can submit a claim for compensation here. Click here for the list of drugs included.
“Generic drugs are supposed to keep medications affordable for the Marylanders who need them,” said Attorney General Brown. “These settlements hold the pharmaceutical companies accountable for colluding to raise prices and offer compensation for those who overpaid.”
Connecticut is leading a coalition of nearly all states and territories engaged in a series of antitrust cases, starting first in 2016. The first Complaint included Heritage and 17 other corporate Defendants, two individual Defendants, and 15 generic drugs. Two former executives from Heritage Pharmaceuticals, Jeffery Glazer and Jason Malek, have since entered into settlement agreements and are cooperating. The second Complaint was filed in 2019 against Teva Pharmaceuticals and 21 of the nation’s largest generic drug manufacturers. The Complaint names 16 individual senior executive Defendants. The third complaint, to be tried first, focuses on 80 topical generic drugs that account for billions of dollars of sales in the United States and names 26 corporate defendants and 10 individual defendants. The States filed a fourth complaint earlier this year, alleging that Novartis AG, Sandoz Group AG and Sandoz AG, are liable for Sandoz’s alleged conduct and for fraudulently transferring assets.
The cases all stem from a series of investigations built on evidence from several cooperating witnesses at the core of the different conspiracies, 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. Each complaint addresses a different set of drugs and defendants, and lays out an interconnected web of competing industry executives that 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 unlawful 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.
Joining Attorney General Brown in the settlements are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.