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US: CVS sues Pfizer over Lipitor generics deal

By  |  August 6, 2018

Pfizer has again been sued over a deal it struck years ago that delayed generic competition to Lipitor, still the best-selling drug of all time. The lawsuit comes from national pharmacy chain CVS, which claims the deal cost it hundreds of millions of dollars.

The 101-page complaint, filed last week in federal court in New Jersey, names Pfizer and Indian drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories, which was bought out in 2015 by Sun Pharmaceutical.

The complaint accuses Pfizer of striking a pay-for-delay deal with the generics maker that kept Lipitor copycats off the market for 20 months, depriving consumers of billions of dollars in savings and costing CVS hundreds of millions in extra costs. Because Ranbaxy had six months of exclusivity through its so-called first-to-file status, other generics could not come into the market until the generics maker launched its own copy. Lipitor had 2010 US sales of US$5.3 billion.

Full Content: Law 360

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