MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) joined a coalition of 48 states and territories announcing a $29.6 million settlement with Glenmark to resolve allegations that the generic drug manufacturer engaged in a widespread, long-running conspiracy to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unreasonably restrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs. As part of the settlement agreement, Glenmark will cooperate in the 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.
“We must not stand for anticompetitive conduct, which raises prices for Wisconsinites,” said AG Kaul. “Those who purchased generic prescription drugs during the relevant time period from a company involved in this or a related settlement are encouraged to visit the website identified below.”
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.
If you purchased a generic prescription drug manufactured by Glenmark, Lannett, Bausch, Apotex or Heritage during the period from May 2009 to 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 https://www.aggenericdrugs.com/English/Home/portalid/0.
Wisconsin has joined a series of antitrust cases relating to prescription drug prices, 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. Seven additional pharmaceutical executives have been cooperating.
The cases all stem from a series of investigations built on evidence from several cooperating witnesses at the core of the different alleged 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 alleged illegal agreements. Throughout the complaints, the allegations refer to the defendants’ use of terms like “fair share,” “playing nice in the sandbox,” and “responsible competitor” to describe how they allegedly 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.
States and territories settling today with Glenmark include: 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, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico.
