Attorney General Bonta Announces $29.6 Million Settlement with Glenmark over Conspiracy to Inflate Pharmaceutical Prices and Limit Competition

If you bought certain generic prescription drugs in the United States between May 1, 2009, and December 31, 2019, you could be eligible for compensation

OAKLAND - California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined a coalition of 48 states and territories in announcing a $29.6 million settlement with Glenmark to resolve allegations that the generic drug manufacturer engaged in a widespread, long-running conspiracy to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unreasonably restrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs. As part of the settlement agreement, Glenmark agrees to cooperate in the ongoing multistate litigations against 33 other corporate Defendants and 25 individual executives. The company has further agreed to a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws.

"Artificially inflating drug prices and blocking competition hurts consumers and the marketplace - full stop," said Attorney General Bonta. "I'm pleased to resolve our claims against Glenmark with this settlement and stay focused on our ongoing litigation against others who have attempted to do the same."

If you purchased a generic prescription drug manufactured by either Glenmark, Lannett, Bausch, Apotex, or Heritage between May 2009 and December 2019, you may be eligible for compensation. To determine your eligibility, call 1-866-290-0182 (Toll-Free), email [email protected] or visit this website.

The Glenmark settlement follows settlements with Lannett, Bausch, Apotex, and Heritage totaling $66.95 million. This latest settlement comes as the States prepare for the first trial to be held in Hartford, Connecticut.

The California Attorney General's Office has been part of a coalition of nearly all states and territories pursuing a series of antitrust cases since 2016. The first complaint included Heritage and 17 other corporate Defendants, two individual Defendants, and 15 generic drugs. Two former executives from Heritage Pharmaceuticals, Jeffery Glazer and Jason Malek, have since entered into settlement agreements and are cooperating. The second Complaint was filed in 2019 against Teva Pharmaceuticals and 21 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 in sales in the United States and names 26 corporate Defendants and 10 individual Defendants. Seven additional pharmaceutical executives have been cooperating to support the States' claims.

The cases all stem from a series of investigations built on evidence from several cooperating witnesses at the core of the different conspiracies, a massive document database 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. Each complaint addresses a different set of drugs and defendants, and lays out an interconnected web of competing industry executives that met with each other during industry dinners, "girls nights out," lunches, cocktail parties, golf outings and communicated via frequent telephone calls, emails and text messages that sowed the seeds for their illegal agreements. Throughout the complaints, defendants use terms like "fair share," "playing nice in the sandbox," and "responsible competitor" to describe how they unlawfully discouraged competition, raised prices and enforced an ingrained culture of collusion. Among the records obtained by the States is a two-volume notebook containing the contemporaneous notes of one of the States' cooperators that memorialized his discussions during phone calls with competitors and internal company meetings over a period of several years.

States and territories settling with Glenmark include: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, 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, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico.