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4 April 2019Americas

Abbvie faces multiple Humira antitrust suits

AbbVie is now facing six antitrust class-action lawsuits which claim that the company illegally stopped competition for its arthritis treatment  Humira (adalimumab).

In mid-March, a grocery workers’ union filed an antitrust suit at the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against AbbVie, accusing it of creating an exclusionary ‘patent thicket’.

The suit described the ‘patent thicket’ as an unlawful scheme where AbbVie secured more than 100 patents “designed solely to insulate Humira from any biosimilar competition in the US for years to come”.

The union claimed: “AbbVie’s scheme to keep out biosimilar competition has cost the US healthcare system billions of dollars. For example, Wells Fargo analyst David Maris calculated that AbbVie’s 9.7% price hike on Humira in 2018 cost the country’s healthcare system approximately $1.2 billion.”

Additionally, the union also alleged that AbbVie has entered into illegal market division agreements with the other defendants in a concerted effort to delay biosimilar entry in the US until at least 2023.

AbbVie has entered into settlement and licensing agreements over Humira biosimilars with seven companies, including Pfizer, Sandoz and Mylan.

“Meanwhile, patients in Europe do not have to wait, as AbbVie agreed to earlier entry dates, thereby permitting biosimilar competitors to launch there. This trade-off meant that the lower price for Humira in Europe was subsidized by the much higher price in the US where AbbVie unlawfully maintained its monopoly,” said the claim.

Since the first filing, other organisations have filed suit against AbbVie.

Police officers in Miami and the mayor and city council in Baltimore filed their antitrust suits within days. Soon after groups representing Minnesota-based pipefitters and electrical workers filed suit.

The Welfare Plan of the International Union of Operating Engineers, which represents heavy equipment operators and stationary engineers, filed the latest suit on Monday, April 1.

Most of the cases have been reassigned or are pending reassignment as related cases.

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More on this story

Americas
3 December 2018   AbbVie has granted Pfizer a non-exclusive global licence to its Humira IP, as announced on Friday, November 30.
Americas
15 May 2019   Boehringer Ingelheim has become the latest biosimilar maker to resolve litigation over AbbVie’s arthritis treatment Humira.
Americas
31 July 2020   Buyers of AbbVie’s arthritis treatment Humira have appealed against an Illinois judge’s decision to dismiss their class action antitrust suit to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

More on this story

Americas
3 December 2018   AbbVie has granted Pfizer a non-exclusive global licence to its Humira IP, as announced on Friday, November 30.
Americas
15 May 2019   Boehringer Ingelheim has become the latest biosimilar maker to resolve litigation over AbbVie’s arthritis treatment Humira.
Americas
31 July 2020   Buyers of AbbVie’s arthritis treatment Humira have appealed against an Illinois judge’s decision to dismiss their class action antitrust suit to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.