Editor’s note: This story has been updated since its original publication to include the addition of a fifth lawsuit and its defendants. Four lawsuits had been filed at press time.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana and HMO Louisiana filed five lawsuits this afternoon against more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies to recoup overcharges resulting from an alleged conspiracy to fix the price of generic drugs.
In the lawsuits, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana alleges that executives from the pharmaceutical companies conspired with competitors to manipulate prices for generic Lidocaine, Prilocaine, Ursodiol, Clobetasol, Levothyroxine, Doxycycline and Digoxin.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which provides health insurance in Louisiana and is listed as Louisiana Health Service Indemnity Company on the lawsuits, says it paid and incurred costs for the prescriptions of each of the generic drugs. The company is seeking class action status for the lawsuits and has requested jury trials.
The filing of the lawsuits follows the guilty pleas to criminal price-fixing by two pharmaceutical executives in a New York court in January, which Blue Cross and Blue Shield says confirms the existence of conspiracies among generic drug manufacturers to fix prices. The lawsuits also follow a more than two-year probe by federal and state agencies into price-fixing and bid-rigging by companies in the generic drug industry.
Named as defendants are Actavis Holdco U.S., Impax Laboratories Inc., Sandoz Inc., Fougera Pharmaceuticals, Hi-Tech Pharmacal Co. Inc., Perrigo Company PLC, Perrigo New York Inc., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Taro Pharmaceuticals Industries LTD, Taro Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., Woodhardt USA, Lannett Company, Akorn Inc., Heritage Pharmaceuticals Inc. and its , Epic Pharma, Mylan Inc., Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Mayne, Par Pharmaceuticals Inc., Par Pharmaceutical Companies, Westward Pharmaceuticals Corp., and Par Pharmaceutical Holdings Inc.
The case was filed in Pennsylvania because most of the defendants either reside or do business in the state and, as Blue Cross alleges, a substantial portion of the affected trade and commerce occurred there. The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation also has consolidated similar cases in that court.
—Alexandria Burris
