US: States allege broad generic drug price-fixing collusion

A large group of US states accused key players in the generic drug industry of a broad price-fixing conspiracy, moving on Tuesday to widen an earlier lawsuit to add many more drugmakers and medicines in an action that sent some company shares tumbling.

The lawsuit, brought by the attorneys general of 45 states and the District of Columbia, accused 18 companies and subsidiaries and named 15 medicines. It also targeted two individual executives: Rajiv Malik, president and executive director of Mylan NV, and Satish Mehta, CEO and managing director of India’s Emcure Pharmaceuticals.

Shares of Pennsylvania-based Mylan, also named as a defendant, closed down 6.6%.

The states said the drugmakers and executives divided customers for their drugs among themselves, agreeing that each company would have a certain percentage of the market. The companies sometimes agreed on price increases in advance, the states added.

The states said Malik and Mehta spoke directly to one another to agree on their companies’ shares of the market for a delayed-release version of a common antibiotic, doxycycline hyclate.

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