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Allergan and Co-Defendants to Pay $9 Million for Product-Hopping to Stifle Generics

February 22, 2018

Allergan, Senju and Kyorin agreed to pay pharmaceuticals purchaser Hartig Drug $9 million to settle a product -hopping class-action lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, filed in 2014, the Dubuque, Iowa-based pharmacy chain accused the three companies of anti-competitive conduct beginning in 2007, arguing they unlawfully excluded and delayed generic competition for the eye drugs Zymar and Zymaxid.

The scheme allegedly included sham patent lawsuits and product hopping — preserving monopoly profits on a patented drug by making modest reformulations offering little or no therapeutic advantages — that delayed generics for years.

Without the intervention, Hartig argued, a Zymar generic could have hit the market in November 2011. But the first such generic did not become available until nearly two years later, which cost Hartig and other purchasers millions more.

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