Conn. AG Jepsen says generic drug suit ‘tip of the iceberg’

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen is leading a coalition of 45 state attorneys general in a new complaint to a pending lawsuit against the generic drug industry.

The states”™ litigation follows an antitrust investigation that alleged an effort was conducted by generic drug manufacturers to fix prices and allocate customers for a number of generic drugs while dividing up the market into specific shares per company, thus limiting competition from outside entities. The expansion of the pending lawsuit increases the number of generic drug manufacturer defendants from six to 18 and the number of drugs at issue in the litigation from two to 15. The states are also suing senior executives at two generic drug companies who are alleged to have engaged in the illegal conduct.

Jepsen referred to the initial lawsuit as “the tip of the iceberg” and accused the drug makers of working against the best interests of patients. “The generic drug market was conceived as a way to help bring down the cost of prescription medications for American consumers,” he said. “For years, though, those savings have not been realized, and instead the prices of many generic drugs have skyrocketed.”