HARRISBURG – Attorney General Dave Sunday announced preliminary approval of a plan to distribute funds to consumers following multiple national settlements with drug manufacturers accused of conspiring to inflate prices of generic prescription drugs.
Impacted consumers are encouraged to file claims or inquire about eligibility for compensation.
This month, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut granted preliminary approval of a plan, filed by Pennsylvania and a coalition of 47 other states and territories, to distribute settlement funds paid by generic drug manufacturers in exchange for the settlement of claims that those companies illegally conspired to raise the prices of generic drugs.
“Pennsylvanians who purchased certain generic prescription drugs during a 10-year-period beginning in 2009 may be entitled to compensation, so I encourage them to act fast,” Attorney General Sunday said. “The window to act is short, so consumers should check their eligibility and make sure they do not miss this opportunity.”
If you purchased a generic drug listed here between May 2009 and 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 www.AGGenericDrugs.com.
To submit a claim for compensation, click here.
The coalition previously announced settlements with the manufacturers Glenmark, Lannett, Bausch, Apotex, Heritage, and Heritage’s parent company, Emcure, totaling approximately $96.5 million. The multistate coalition’s distribution plan aims to return millions of dollars from those settlement funds to those potentially harmed by the elevated prices of the generic drugs that are the subjects of those settlements.
Pennsylvania is part of a coalition of nearly all states and territories engaged in a series of antitrust cases, starting first in 2016. The first complaint included Heritage and 17 other corporate defendants, two individual defendants, and 15 generic drugs. 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. The States filed a fourth complaint earlier this year, alleging that Novartis AG, Sandoz Group AG and Sandoz AG, are liable for Sandoz’s alleged conduct and for fraudulently transferring assets. Seven pharmaceutical executives have been cooperating to support the States’ claims in these cases.
The above-mentioned cases stem from a series of investigations built on evidence from several cooperating witnesses at the core of the different conspiracies, millions of documents, and a massive phone record database. Each complaint addresses a different set of drugs and defendants and lays out an interconnected web of competing industry executives who regularly met and communicated with each other, providing ample opportunity to form illegal agreements. The complaints note that defendants used terms like “fair share,” “playing nice in the sandbox,” and “responsible competitor” to unlawfully discourage competition, raise prices, and enforce an ingrained culture of collusion.
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