It May Be Fall But the Generic Pricing MDL Springs Forward

On October 16, 2018, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Rufe, J.) entered an opinion and order denying over 30 separate motions to dismiss filed by 15 generic manufacturers named as defendants in the Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust multidistrict litigation.  The Generic Pricing MDL alleges a conspiracy among numerous generic manufacturers to fix, maintain and stabilize prices, rig bids, and engage in market and customer allocations across a wide-range of over 30 generic pharmaceutical products, including clobetasol, digoxin, divalproex, doxycycline, econazole, and pravastatin.  The decision, entered Tuesday, concerns only the first of at least three different groupings of hundreds of complaints, but will undoubtedly shape the future course of the entire litigation.  Defendants in this first group include Akorn, Inc., Apotex Corp., Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Inc., Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Impax Laboratories, Inc., Lannett Company, Inc., Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Mayne Pharma USA, Inc., Mylan, Inc., Par Pharmaceutical, Inc., Perrigo New York, Inc., Sandoz Inc., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Inc., Taro Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., West-Ward Pharmaceuticals Corp., Wockhardt USA, and Zydus Pharmaceuticals (USA) Inc.  The court has set a general status conference for November 20 to be held in the James A. Byrne Courthouse.

Plaintiffs in the MDL include proposed direct purchaser, end-payor, and indirect reseller classes, direct action retailer plaintiffs led by The Kroger Co., and 48 of the 50 States attorneys general.  The Department of Justice has also intervened, and, in connection with its parallel investigation, has so far obtained guilty pleas from former CEO Jeffrey A. Glazer and former President Jason T. Malek of MDL defendant Heritage Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Faruqi and Faruqi, LLP is one of several firms representing the direct purchaser class plaintiffs.