At a time when Oregon families are reeling from higher costs on everything, including health care and prescription drugs, Attorney General Dan Rayfield and a bipartisan coalition of other states have announced a $29.6 million settlement with Glenmark, a drug manufacturer accused of inflating prices and limiting competition regarding numerous generic prescription drugs.
“Every Oregonian deserves access to life-saving medicine,” said Attorney General Rayfield. “But corporate greed and collusion by pharmaceutical companies are sending prices out of control, forcing families to choose between medication and food. In this case, Glenmark was working with other drug companies to keep prices artificially high, and Oregon families paid for it every time they picked up a prescription. This is money out of people’s pockets for medications they needed.”
Oregon’s share of today’s settlement is just over $316,000. As part of the settlement agreement, Glenmark will cooperate in ongoing multistate litigations against 33 corporate defendants and 25 individual executives. The company has further agreed to a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws.
The Glenmark settlement follows settlements with Lannett, Bausch, Apotex, and Heritage totaling $66.95 million. This latest settlement comes as the States prepare for the first trial to be held in Hartford, Connecticut.
Customers who purchased a generic prescription drug manufactured by either Glenmark, Lannett, Bausch, Apotex or Heritage between May 2009 and December 2019, may be eligible for compensation. To determine eligibility, call 1-866-290-0182 (Toll-Free), email info@AGGenericDrugs.com or visit www.AGGenericDrugs.com(Opens in a new tab/window).
Background
Today’s settlement is part of a series of antitrust cases that started in 2016. The first complaint included Heritage and 17 other corporations and two individuals, covering 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 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. Seven additional pharmaceutical executives have been cooperating to support the States’ claims.
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 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 reveal that while most American families are struggling to make ends meet, a chummy web of industry executives was meeting with each other during industry dinners, “girls’ nights out” lunches, cocktail parties, and golf outings. Rather than acting as competitors, which would keep process down, they communicated through frequent telephone calls, emails, and text messages that sowed the seeds for their illegal agreements, lining their pockets with corporate profits at the expense of struggling families.
In addition to Attorney General Rayfield, this settlement involved states and territories including: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico.
