Office of the
Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul
Raoul and Majority of Coalition also File New Lawsuit Against Novartis for Same Actions
Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined a bipartisan coalition of 48 states and territories announcing two additional settlements with Lannett Company Inc. and Bausch Health US LLC and Bausch Health Americas Inc., totaling $17.85 million to resolve allegations that these companies engaged in widespread, long-running conspiracies to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition and unreasonably restrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs.
Raoul is urging Illinois consumers who purchased a generic prescription drug listed here between May 2009 and December 2019 to determine their eligibility by calling 1-866-290-0182 (Toll-Free), emailing info@AGGenericDrugs.com or visiting www.AGGenericDrugs.com.
“This settlement is another victory in holding drug companies accountable for engaging in practices to maximize profits at the expense of Illinoisans’ health and pocketbooks,” Raoul said. “I will continue to stand with my fellow attorneys general to stop pharmaceutical companies and executives from continuing unlawful and unfair tactics that fuel health care inequity in Illinois and around the country.”
As part of the settlement agreements, both companies have agreed to cooperate in ongoing multistate litigation against 30 corporate defendants and 25 individual executives. Both companies have further agreed to a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws.
Also today, Raoul joined 41 states and territories in filing a new lawsuit against Novartis and its generic subsidiary Sandoz, alleging a systemic campaign to conspire with other generic manufacturers to fix prices, allocate markets and rig bids for 31 different generic drugs. The complaint further alleges that Novartis took steps to fraudulently transfer and drain assets from Sandoz and spin off Sandoz to shield Novartis from liability in the three previously filed state antitrust complaints against the company.
This is the latest legal challenge by Raoul and the coalition. The cases stem from a series of investigations built on evidence from several cooperating witnesses at the core of different conspiracies, a massive document database comprised 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.
The first complaint, filed in 2016, 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 19 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 multistate coalition has reached a series of settlements with several executives and companies. Seven pharmaceutical executives have entered into settlement agreements, as well as Apotex and Heritage, which paid $39.1 million and $10 million, respectively.
Joining Raoul in this settlement are the attorneys general of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, 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, Utah, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
