Teva Pharmaceuticals CEO Kåre Schultz (Facebook)
The US Justice Department announced deferred prosecution agreements resolving criminal antitrust charges against Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. (a subsidiary of Israel’s Teva) and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc. As part of those agreements, both companies will divest a key business line involved in the misconduct, a generic cholesterol drug, pravastatin, and as an additional remedial measure, Teva will make a $50 million drug donation to humanitarian organizations. Teva will pay a $225 million criminal penalty — the largest to date for a domestic antitrust cartel — and Glenmark will pay a $30 million criminal penalty.
Teva Pharmaceuticals will face federal criminal charges in the U.S. should it fail to comply with any part of the deal. The company was one of seven firms charged with fixing prices of the drug pravastatin.
“Today, the Antitrust Division and our law enforcement partners hold two more pharmaceutical companies accountable for raising prices of essential medicines and depriving Americans of affordable access to prescription drugs. The resolutions include extraordinary remedial measures that require the breakup of assets and restore competition to the industry,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “Companies in heavily regulated industries are on notice that the division will not hesitate to hold them accountable and will not tolerate recidivism.”
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“Teva has robust and consistent compliance controls in place designed to prevent this type of activity from reoccurring, and has committed, as part of the [deferred prosecution agreement], to maintain those controls going forward,” said Teva Pharmaceuticals adding that the company is “pleased to put these charges behind us.”
This new deal comes just a few months after Teva Pharmaceuticals reached a nationwide settlement of class action suits brought by almost all of the individual U.S. States for its part in the American opioid epidemic. And after that settlement was reached the company’s stock dropped.
