AG Aaron M. Frey.
Attorney General Aaron M. Frey joined a coalition of 51 states led by Connecticut filing the third lawsuit stemming from the ongoing antitrust investigation into a widespread conspiracy by generic drug manufacturers to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition and unreasonable restraint trade for generic drugs sold across the United States. This new Complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Connecticut, focuses on 80 topical generic drugs that account for billions of dollars of sales in the United States. The Complaint names 26 corporate defendants and 10 individual defendants. The lawsuit seeks damages, civil penalties and actions by the court to restore competition to the generic drug market.
The topical drugs at the center of the Complaint include creams, gels, lotions, ointments, shampoos and solutions used to treat a variety of skin conditions, pain and allergies.
“Prescription drug prices are one of the most notorious drivers of high prices which make health care too difficult for many Mainers to afford,” said Frey in a press release issued on June 10, 2020. “When generic drug manufacturers conspire to artifically inflate prices, they are essentially taking money out of consumers’ pockets and I will fight vigorously to hold them accountable.”
The Complaint stems from an ongoing investigation built on evidence from several cooperating witnesses at the core of the conspiracy, 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. Among the records obtained by the States is a two-volume notebook containing the contemporaneous notes of one of the State’s cooperators that memoralized his discussions during phone calls with competitors and internal company meetings over a period of several years.
Between 2007 and 2014, three generic drug manufacturers, Taro, Perrigo and Fougera (now Sandoz) sold nearly 2/3 of all generic, topical products dispensed in the US. The multistate investigation has uncovered comprehensive, direct evidence of unlawful agreements to minimize competition and raise prices on dozens of topical products. The Complaint alleges longstanding agreements among manufacturers to ensure a “fair share” of the market for each competitor and to prevent price erosion due to competition.
The Complaint is the third to be filed in an ongoing, expanding investigation that the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General has referred to as possibly the largest domestic corporate cartel case in the history of the United States.