Zeneca, Schering, market control, "false patents": there's something familiar about this story
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NYC Police Group Sues Drug Makers
Tuesday August 21, 2001
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The New York City Policemen's Benevolent Association (PBA) announced on Tuesday that it has filed four federal class-action suits charging eight brand-name and generic drug makers with illegally conspiring to keep cheaper generic versions of popular drugs off the US market.
In one complaint, filed in West Virginia, the PBA charges that a March 2000 settlement between Pfizer and Mylan Laboratories, which resulted in Mylan marketing licensed versions of Pfizer's hypertension/angina drug Procardia XL (nifedipine), rather than its own generic drug, unfairly forced the PBA to pay inflated prices for the drug when a generic alternative should have been available.
In a second complaint, filed in New York, the PBA states that Zeneca, which subsequently merged with Astra to form AstraZeneca, unlawfully entered a similar arrangement with Barr Laboratories in order to keep cheaper versions of Zeneca's cancer drug Nolvadex (tamoxifen) off the market. According to the PBA, Barr's Zeneca-manufactured tamoxifen sold at a 5% discount to the brand drug, when generics typically run at a 30% to 80% discount.
In the PBA's New Jersey suit, the organization asserts that Schering-Plough illegally paid Upsher-Smith and American Home Product's ESI Lederle division to delay introduction of generic alternatives to K-Dur 20, a prescription potassium chloride supplement used by people who take high blood pressure medicine.
In the final complaint, filed in the District of Columbia, the PBA alleges that Bristol-Myers Squibb filed false patents on its anti-anxiety drug BuSpar (buspirone) with the US Food and Drug Administration, blocking generic competition while the agency considered the patent applications.
“These allegedly illegal agreements between brand-name and generic companies force us, our members and others to pay artificially high prices for very important, common medications,” PBA President Patrick Lynch said. “Our union and our members have been squeezed by these inflated prices and we are bringing these lawsuits to fight back.” The PBA did not specify what, if any, damages were being sought.
All four incidents and all eight companies have already been named in ongoing antitrust suits filed by Boston-based consumer advocacy group the Prescription Access Litigation Project.