Washington Attorney General announces new settlements and fresh lawsuit as multistate probe targets alleged price-fixing that drove generic drug costs far beyond normal levels

Olympia, Washington – This week, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said that there was new progress in a wide-ranging effort across multiple states to stop alleged price-fixing in the generic drug industry. They got $17.85 million in new settlements and filed a new complaint against a major pharmaceutical company and its subsidiaries.

The most recent agreements settle claims against Lannett Company, Inc., Bausch Health US, LLC, and Bausch Health Americas, Inc. State attorneys general say that the companies were involved in long-running schemes that manipulated prices, limited competition, and illegally restricted trade on a wide range of generic prescription drugs. Investigators said that the behavior made people pay much higher prices for necessary drugs, often more than ten times the standard amount.

The settlements are part of a much bigger antitrust case that includes many pharmaceutical companies that are accused of working together to fix prices in the generics market. Lannett and Bausch have agreed to work with the ongoing lawsuits against other defendants in addition to financial payments. They also promised to make changes to their own rules to stop future antitrust violations and encourage fair competition.

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These resolutions come after Apotex and Heritage Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay a total of $49.1 million. The agreements are a big step forward as the states get ready for the first trial in the lawsuit, which is set to start in Connecticut in late 2026.

Brown commented that the behavior alleged in the cases is some of the worst corporate behavior that could happen.

“It’s hard to imagine more despicable corporate behavior than conspiring to raise the price of medicine for people who need it,” Brown said. “We will continue holding these wrongdoers accountable and secure restitution for Washington consumers and businesses.”

Washington residents who bought one or more of the impacted generic medications between May 2009 and December 2019 may be able to get money back. Washington and Idaho are the only states in the coalition that got money back for businesses that were impacted, including those that bought the medications indirectly or paid for them within the same time.

A group of 42 states and territories launched a new case against Novartis and its generic business, Sandoz, at the same time as the settlements were made public. The complaint says that the corporations worked with their competitors to control prices, divide markets, and rig bids for 31 generic medications. It also claims that Novartis moved and eliminated assets from Sandoz before spinning off the subsidiary, allegedly to limit its exposure to liability in earlier cases.

This is the fourth complaint in the larger probe, which includes three other big lawsuits that encompass dozens of medications and billions of dollars in sales. The cases are based on a lot of evidence, such as collaborating witnesses, millions of papers, phone records, and detailed notes made by industry executives that supposedly show years of coordinated behavior among competitors.