On Friday, the Attorneys General for 44 states around the Country joined in a complaint filed against four generic drug manufacturers and some individual officers of those companies. The documents accuse the defendants of a complex scheme by which they marked up the drugs sometimes as much as 1000%, and then divided up the customer base. The press release states: “Rather than enter a particular generic drug market by competing on price in order to gain market share,” the complaint states, “competitors in the generic drug industry would systematically and routinely communicate with one another directly, divvy up customers to create an artificial equilibrium in the market, and then maintain anticompetitively high prices.” Though this matter was not brought under the False Claims Act, it seems that it very well could have been. Given the amount of emails and other documentary evidence of the scheme, it would not surprise me if investigations on the federal level are already proceeding in the background.
If you would like to read more about the States’ lawsuit, click here.