By: Don Driggers
While the opiate lawsuit settlement from last October turned out better than expected for Teva, a new lawsuit regarding fixing generic drug prices has emerged.
A federal judge overseeing thousands of opioid lawsuits declined on Monday to grant a demand by plaintiffs’ attorneys for fees that could be worth billions of dollars, a request drug company defendant had said would jeopardize settlement talks, Reuters reported.
According to last year’s agreement, under which the company would not admit liability, Teva would donate buprenorphine naloxone tablets worth approximately $23 billion at the drug’s list price. Buprenorphine naloxone, also sold under the brand name Suboxone, is a combination of two medications that helps to treat drug addicts, WSJ reported. In addition, Teva also pledged $250 million in cash over 10 years as part of the settlement. That framework has made stockholders happy and shares are up about 50% since then.
Teva pledged to donate “quantities of up to the amount needed to meet the majority of the currently estimated U.S. patient need over the next 10 years.”
Reuters reported: In February, a committee of plaintiffs’ attorneys requested that U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland order a 7% fee assessment against any settlement.
The request could amount to $3.3 billion, based on a $48 billion settlement proposal that five companies including Johnson & Johnson have been negotiating with various state attorneys general.
Polster said in Monday’s order he expected any eventual resolution of the lawsuits to include a method for paying the attorneys, so a fee order was unnecessary at this time, but he left open the possibility of revisiting the request.
Last October WSJ reported: Lawyers for the plaintiffs and companies said the settlement could be an important step toward a multibillion-dollar deal that brings closure to 2,500 lawsuits and sends needed money to communities hard-hit by opioid addiction. Municipalities have balked at a comprehensive settlement negotiated by state attorneys general that includes $22 billion in cash and up to $26 billion in donated addiction-treatment drugs and services, saying that it isn’t enough money and that they want some control over how it is spent.
Recently this developed according to Bloomberg:
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. will be the focus of the first trial over an alleged “overarching” industrywide conspiracy to fix generic prices, while bellwether trials involving schemes to fix three specific drug prices will advance along a separate track, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled Tuesday.
