State Attorneys General Broaden their Generic Drug Price-Fixing Litigation with New Complaint

A coalition of state attorneys general filed their third antitrust lawsuit against generic drug manufacturers. The over-600 page complaint alleges that 26 generic manufacturers had long-standing agreements not to compete for customers and to fix prices on 80 different topical generic drugs which are used to treat a range of skin conditions, pain, and allergies. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, leading the States, describes the price-fixing conspiracy as a “multibillion-dollar fraud on the American Public” committed through “phone calls, text messages, emails, corporate conventions, and cozy dinner parties . . . as though it were a standard course of business.”  Tong further states that the “case is built on hard evidence from multiple cooperating witnesses, millions of records, and contemporaneous notes that paint an undeniable picture of the largest domestic corporate cartel in our nation’s history.”

The new complaint expands on the already massive conspiracies alleged in States’ 2016 and 2019 complaints, pushing the number of drugs at issue to nearly 200. The complaint also arrives on the heels of admissions of guilt to the Department of Justice by generic manufacturers Apotex Corp., Heritage Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Rising Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Sandoz Inc., which together paid criminal penalties of over $220 million. 

The investigations of the States and the DOJ remain ongoing.

Faruqi & Faruqi represents direct purchasers in In re Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust Litigation.