Drug Store News - FTC suit charges drug companies with stifling generic competition - Brief Article
The Federal Trade Commissions suit filed last month alleging anticompetitive practices by Aventis and Andrx Corp. is part of a larger year-long investigation involving six drugs poised to lose patent protection.
The FTC suit charges that Hoechst, now Aventis, and Andrx entered an agreement in which Andrx was paid $10 million per quarter beginning in July 1998 to keep a generic version of Cardizem CD off the market.
In announcing the suit, the FTC said it had reached a proposed settlement with Abbott Laboratories and Geneva, resolving charges that the companies had entered a similar anticompetitive agreement in which Abbott paid Geneva substantial sums–according to the FTC, $4.5 million per month–to delay bringing to market a generic alternative to Abbott’s drug Hytrin.
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While maintaining they had acted lawfully, Abbott and Geneva, a unit of Novartis, agreed as part of the settlement to allow the FTC to review future contracts; Geneva also will be required to waive its right to 180 day exclusivity for its generic terazosin HCL tablets.
The FTC stated that it anticipates the agreement “will help to shape further the appropriate conduct in this area. Pharmaceutical firms should now be on notice, however, that arrangements comparable to those addressed can raise serious antitrust issues, with a potential for serious consumer harm.”
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COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
