Corporate Governance

?Pay-for-Delay? Settlements Costs Health and Welfare Funds

By Adam G. Kurtz

At Pomerantz, our Antitrust lawyers represent the interests of labor union health and welfare funds that seek compensation for having to pay anticompetitive high prices for well known branded pharmaceutical drugs as a result of what has become known as ?Pay-for-Delay? settlements, in which well known branded drug companies pay off the makers of competing generic drugs not to bring their products to market.  It has been the position of Pomerantz and our health and welfare fund clients that these ?Pay-for-Delay? settlements result in the delay of generic drugs into the marketplace, which cost consumers of pharmaceutical drugs billions of dollars each year. 

Last year and again earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission published studies that actually quantify the cost of anticompetitive Pay-for-Delay settlements to consumers, both financially and in terms of the delay in generic alternatives to enter the market.  The cost to consumers is $3.5 billion a year that results from an average delay of 17 months. 

For more about Pay-for-Delay in the Pharmaceutical Industry, in general, click here.

For more about the Sweetheart ?Pay-for-Delay? Deals That Keep Generic Drugs Off the Market and Cost Consumers Billions of Dollars Each Year, click here.

For more about FTC Chairman Leibowitz: Eliminating ?Pay-for-Delay? Pharmaceutical Settlements Would Save Consumers $3.5 Billion Annually, click here.

Full post as published by PomTalk on June 04, 2010 (boomark / email).