HELENA – Attorney General Austin Knudsen is urging Montanans to check their eligibility for compensation for certain generic drug purchases and to submit a claim for compensation following a settlement with manufacturers who illegally conspired to raise the prices of generic drugs. This month, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut granted preliminary approval of a plan, filed by Montana and a coalition of 47 other states and territories, to distribute settlement funds paid by generic drug manufacturers in exchange for settlement of claims that those companies illegally conspired to raise the prices of generic drugs.
The multistate coalition previously reached settlement agreements with the manufacturers Glenmark, Lannett, Bausch, Apotex, Heritage, and Heritage’s parent company, Emcure, totaling approximately $96.5 million. The 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.
Montanans who purchased a generic drug listed here between May 2009 and December 2019, may be eligible for compensation. To determine eligibility, call 1-866-290-0182 (Toll-Free), email [email protected] or visit www.AGGenericDrugs.com.
Montana 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 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.
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, U.S. Virgin Islands, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming joined in today’s announcement.
