FTC Gets $1.2 Billion From Drug Company Over 'Pay For Delay' Patent Scam
from the one-down dept
The FTC started looking into these practices years ago, and two years ago the Supreme Court ruled that the FTC had every right to go after drug makers using antitrust laws over these "deals." And the FTC has been filing lawsuits on an ongoing basis about these deals.
Teva has now settled one such case for a cool $1.2 billion -- giving you a sense of just how valuable it has been to these pharma companies to extend their monopoly, keep out competition and keep drug prices artificially high. With Teva, it was the sleep disorder drug provigil (and, technically, the drugmaker was Cephalon, which Teva then bought). Teva had been fighting with the FTC for years over this, and the case was scheduled to go to trial next week -- but the settlement ends that. The amount, $1.2 billion, by the way, is the largest ever settlement with the FTC. You have to imagine that there will be more of these coming considering the number of other lawsuits and the fact that "pay for delay" was a widespread practice in the pharma industry.
Of course, even with all of this abuse, some people still insist that giving monopoly rights to pharmaceutical companies is the best way to produce new medicines and to provide healthcare. Isn't it about time we began to question those assumptions?