Legal proceedings are nothing new for Teva. During an eight-day stretch last August, for example, courts in Boston, Philadelphia and New York filed various lawsuits against the generic drugmaking giant.
But now the company is pushing back. Facing antitrust charges from the U.S. Department of Justice, Teva has accused the government of piling on. In Pennsylvania federal court, the company claims the feds rewrote a price-fixing lawsuit to allege a much broader scheme than they had originally outlined.
In a brief filed on Friday, Teva claimed that the DOJ was adjusting a second superseding indictment “in two critical ways to include additional drugs and conspiracies not alleged.”
In the DOJ's indictment, Teva is accused of participating in conspiracies to “suppress and eliminate competition” by agreeing to fix prices, allocate customers and rig bids. The feds alleged price-fixing on host of drugs including prevastatin, carbmezepine, etodolac, warfarin, clotrimazole and a variety of other medications for skin conditions, seizures, bipolar disorder and pain and arthritis.
The indictment also includes another generic drugmaker, Glenmark, which also has opposed the rewritten lawsuit. The company also claims the new suit alleges a conspiracy different from the one on which it was indicted last August.
Glenmark has also opposed to how the DOJ is contacting its executives, court filings show. Two weeks ago, the court ordered the DOJ to stop interviewing Glenmark executives in India without notifying the company's lawyers.
Glenmark has tried to sever itself from the case, arguing that it should face its own proceedings. The DOJ claims that Glenmark must be included in the case because of the overlap in the charges against the companies.
The DOJ indicted the companies, along with three other generic drugmakers, last August. The other companies reached settlements, with Taro paying $205.7 million, Sandoz settling for $195 million and Apotex paying $24.1 million.