Allergan pays $750m to resolve antitrust litigation
Allergan has reached a $750 million deal to resolve antitrust litigation brought against its subsidiary Forest Laboratories over Alzheimer’s drug Namenda (memantine hydrochloride).
The resolution brings the litigation, which was set to go to trial this month at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, to an end. However, Irish pharmaceutical company Allergan has admitted no wrongdoing.
Back in 2015, the Sergeants Benevolent Association (a group of direct purchasers) accused Forest of engaging in anticompetitive conduct to keep generic versions of its Namenda out of the market.
According to the suit, six years prior, Forest had brought patent infringement lawsuits against a number of pharmaceutical companies, after they filed Abbreviated New Drug Applications with the Food and Drug Administration for generic versions of Namenda.
At least five of the generic makers agreed not to compete with each other or Forest until 2015, alleged the suit, adding that Forest had also implemented a “forced switch” of the US market from Namenda to Namenda XR.
“This switch crossed the line from persuasion to coercion and is anticompetitive,” said the direct purchasers.
The defendants in the suit (Forest and the generic makers) moved jointly to dismiss the complaint. In September 2016, the New York court largely denied the motion and issued a stay of the association’s action.
In September 2018, the court lifted the stay and ordered that the Sergeants Benevolent Association “get up to speed, engage in nonduplicative discovery, and be prepared to participate in global mediation”, said the fund.
Fast-forward to August this year and Amneal and three other generic makers agreed to pay $1.54 million to settle the class-action lawsuit.
In the same month, a subsidiary of Allergan agreed to pay a combined total of $2.7 million to three organisations that were part of an antitrust class suit over Asacol, a delayed-release oral tablet that treats mild to moderately active ulcerative colitis.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox.
