California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in San Francisco on Monday announced a nearly $70 million settlement of two so-called “pay for delay” cases against prescription drug companies.
The bulk of the settlement is a $69 million agreement with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. of Israel, which allegedly caused a six-year delay in allowing cheaper generic forms of a wakefulness drug, Provigil, to enter the market. Provigil is used to treat narcolepsy.
“Pay for delay” refers to the alleged practice by brand-name companies of paying generic drug makers to delay placing lower-cost generic versions of the drug on the market.
Becerra alleged in a federal lawsuit that a delay in generic forms of Provigil between 2006 and 2012 cost Californians hundreds of millions of dollars. The brand-name Provigil was originally sold by Cephalon Inc., which was acquired by Teva in 2012.
“No one should be able to put their greed in front of our loved ones’ health,” Becerra said at a news conference at the State Building.
The agreement, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, provides that the $69 million may come out of a fund set aside by Teva to pay consumer claims as part of a 2015 settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and
Cephalon. But Teva will remain responsible for paying any part of the settlement amount that the FTC does not allow to be paid from the earlier fund.
About $25 million of the settlement will be used to compensate Californians who bought Provigil and related drugs Nuvigil and Modafinil between 2006 and 2012. The remainder of the money will be used for investigation and enforcement actions by Becerra’s office.
A Teva spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment. The company does not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.
In a separate settlement reached in federal court in San Francisco last month, Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to pay $760,000 to settle allegations that it caused a two-year delay in the marketing of low-cost general versions of Lidoderm, a medical patch to relieve shingles pain.
8 comments
Good.
wow so this whole article accept for a tiny bit at the bottom is all about sticking it to israel
wow so the anti is all the way to the top …bad form dems …
with your open boarder policy and everyone has full access to tax payer money …you sure went out of your way to fleece Israel
and out of your way to include israel in the article
as you name a pharma company who nobody will care about accept for maybe getting some money the author had to include israel to appease the dem agenda of anti everyone else
keep voting for hate and you too become hate ….
Give it a rest, man. I read this story several times. Israel is mentioned exactly once. Teva happens to be an Israeli company so the mention of Israel in the story is legitimate. They would have cited Nigeria or Bolivia if that is where Teva was based.
Not every article, post, or blog is a left wing conspiracy!
If they settled for $70M, I suspect they pocketed 10 times that much.
The remainder of the money will be wasted by the AG’s office filing lawsuits against Trump, even after he’s long out of office.
If any of the money gets to those who paid the high price I will eat somebody’s hat. Tell me again what the AG is going to do with fifty million dollars.
For once, I agree with Becerra. Teva got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Shame on Teva for doing this. Now they pay.
What I think is most criminal about this settlement is that only $25 million goes to the people who actually suffered damages. The AG is the one who really makes bank by keeping $45 million. Why not pay out all of the $ to the victims?
Seems like alot of protection money is getting skimmed by Capo Becerra.
Business as usual. They’ll profit 100 times, or more, than the fine. Lives be dam. Should start finding 100 times more!
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