The embattled pharmaceutical industry will face a powerful new foe in the growing legal assault against drugmakers by consumer groups and federal and state regulators.
AARP, the nation’s largest senior group, Wednesday said it will become co-counsel in at least three class-action lawsuits that allege certain brand-name and generic drugmakers have kept lower cost medicines out of consumers’ hands.
The suits, alleging drugmakers have illegally kept less expensive generic drugs off the market, were filed in the last year by Boston-based Community Catalyst, a consumer group that has been stepping up litigation against drug companies through its coalition known as Prescription Access Litigation Project.
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With the addition of AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, the coalition believes it will broaden its attack given the clout of the senior group, which has more than 35 million members and is known as one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. It is the first time AARP has entered the federal courts as co-counsel on an antitrust issue against the drug industry.
“AARP’s support adds significant new legal firepower to our litigation team, and will strengthen our capacity to take on drug companies that profit at the expense of American consumers,” said Robert Restuccia, executive director of Community Catalyst.
In one of the lawsuits, the consumer groups say AstraZeneca and generic drugmaker Barr Laboratories colluded illegally to keep a lower-price version of the breast cancer drug tamoxifen off the market. After Barr won a 1992 court victory to sell a generic version of AstraZeneca’s tamoxifen, the two companies made a private agreement that resulted in Barr selling AstraZeneca’s drug rather than its own cheaper generic version, the consumer lawsuits allege.
But drug companies that are targets of the class actions say the suits are groundless. Further, AstraZeneca and Barr say a similar antitrust investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into their relationship regarding tamoxifen was closed earlier this year without a lawsuit being filed.
AARP, however, is pressing ahead, saying such arrangements hurt consumers, especially elderly patients who don’t have pharmaceutical drug coverage and have to pay out-of-pocket for drugs.
“We want to end these collusive agreements,” said AARP spokesman Steve Hahn. “This is part of our three-pronged attack to lower drug costs: education, legislation and now litigation.”
Such pacts between brand-name and generic drugmakers have increasingly been under attack by federal and state regulators.
Two years ago, for example, North Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories settled allegations that it paid Novartis AG unit Geneva Pharmaceuticals Inc. not to market a generic form of Abbott’s hypertension drug Hytrin, according to an agreement the companies made with the Federal Trade Commission. Both companies were prohibited from engaging in such anti-competitive deals in the future but paid no financial penalties.
Abbott admitted no wrongdoing in the FTC settlement. Abbott is not named in any of the three suits now pending against the drugmakers.
Abbott retirement: Longtime Abbott Laboratories lobbyist and lawyer Mark Barmak has retired after 30 years, the company said.
Barmak, 60, has been the medical product giant’s vice president of government affairs for the last three years. Prior to that, he was vice president of litigation and held various legal positions.
Barmak has been replaced by Elaine Leavenworth, most recently Abbott’s top internal lobbyist in Washington, who will now oversee all government affairs activities.