AG Nessel Urges Consumers to Check Eligibility for Compensation for Inflated Generic Drug Prices

LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is urging consumers to check their eligibility for compensation for certain generic drug purchases as Michigan joins 50 states and territories in seeking preliminary approval for a $39.1 million settlement with generic drug manufacturer Apotex over conspiracy to inflate prices and limit competition.  

“We have seen time and again how drug manufacturers conspire to inflate prices at the expense of the people who rely on their medications,” Nessel said. “This settlement sends a clear message that such unethical conduct will not be tolerated and marks a step toward ensuring medications remain accessible for those who need them most. I encourage anyone who believes they may have been affected by these practices to check if they are eligible for compensation.” 

Attorney General Nessel and the multistate coalition previously announced the settlement in principle with Apotex last fall along with a $10 million settlement with Heritage Pharmaceuticals. At the time of that announcement, the settlement with Apotex was conditioned on the signatures of all necessary states and territories. Those signatures have been obtained, and the coalition is filing the settlement (PDF) today in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in Hartford. 

If you purchased a generic prescription drug listed here (PDF) between May 2009 and December 2019, you may be eligible for compensation. To determine your eligibility, call 1-866-290-0182 (Toll-Free), email or visit the AG Generic Drugs Settlement website.

The settlement agreements resolve allegations that both Apotex and Heritage engaged in widespread, long-running conspiracies to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unreasonably restrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs. As part of the settlement agreements, both Apotex and Heritage have agreed to cooperate in the ongoing multistate litigations against 30 corporate defendants and 25 individual executives. Both companies have further agreed to injunctive relief to prevent future misconduct and to a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws.  

Michigan is among a coalition of nearly all states and territories that filed three antitrust complaints, starting first in 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 (PDF) was filed in 2019 against Teva Pharmaceuticals and 19 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 of sales in the United States and names 26 corporate defendants and 10 individual defendants. Six additional pharmaceutical executives have entered into settlement agreements with the States and have been cooperating to support the States’ claims in all three cases.   

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 industry executives where these competitors 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.

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, 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 joined in today’s announcement.

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