NY will receive more than $10 million as part of a settlement between 48 states and the maker of Provigil, a drug used to treat excessive sleepiness, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Thursday.
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OH will recover about $4 million in a settlement with Cephalon over allegations that the biopharmaceutical company engaged in anti-competitive conduct that delayed market entry of Provigil, a prescription drug used to promote wakefulness and treat sleep disorders. As a result of Cephalon’s conduct, generic versions of Provigil were delayed from entering the market for several years.
“When pharmaceutical companies put profits ahead of people by illegally restricting competition, it harms patients across our state”, said Attorney General Schneiderman.
As patent and regulatory barriers that prevented generic competition to Provigil neared expiration, Cephalon defrauded the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office into issuing it an additional patent, which a court subsequently deemed invalid and unenforceable. Before that court finding, Cephalon was able to delay generic competition for almost six years by filing patent infringement lawsuits. Missouri will receive approximately $2 million, including $766,000 to Missouri consumers who purchased the drug Provigil.
Cephalon then settled those patent infringement lawsuits in 2005 and 2006 by paying the generic competitors to delay sale of the generic versions of Provigil until 2012, according to a summary from the Florida Attorney General’s Office.
Because of that delay, consumers, states and others paid hundreds of millions of dollars more for Provigil than they would have if generic versions of the drug had launched by early 2006, as expected, authorities said. If the court approves the settlement, eligible consumers will be notified and will have an opportunity to participate in, object to, or opt out of the settlement.
The settlement with Cephalon, now owned by Teva Pharmaceuticals, comes a little more than a year after the company struck a $1.2 billion parallel settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
This multistate settlement was facilitated by litigation brought against Cephalon by the FTC, Olens’ office said.
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The settlement is still subject to court review.
