TRIAL ATTORNEYS WORKING FOR YOU
Concerned that overpriced prescription drugs drive up everyone’s health-care costs, America’s trial lawyers led the fight for cheaper prescription medications.
Background
SmithKline had manufactured the antidepressant drug Paxil®, which grossed more than $1.4 billion in sales in 1999. The last thing SmithKline and other drug companies ever want to see is less expensive, safe, generic alternative medications compete against their products in the marketplace.
Generics
When Apotex, Inc., and TorPharm, Inc., sought approval from the Food and Drug Administration to market a less costly, safe, and generic version of Paxil, SmithKline wrongly filed patent challenges to delay any generic from reaching the market—keeping a monopoly and maintaining prices at artificially high levels for patients.
Each SmithKline patent challenge delayed the introduction of less expensive generics by two and half years. The Federal Trade Commission even opened an antitrust investigation of SmithKline, but ultimately it was trial attorneys who won the fight for less costly prescription drugs for American consumers.
Class action
On behalf of consumers, small businesses, and drug wholesalers, thai attorneys filed a class-action antitrust suit against SmithKline. They won compensation for the overcharging and stopped the delays. The judge even applauded “the high caliber of plaintiff’s counsels’ work in this case.”
