[Ip-health] Colorado AG sues Abbott, Geneva and Ivax over generic Hytrin

[love@cptech.org]

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,33%257E161679,00.html

Colo. AG sues 3 firms over drug

By Marsha Austin 
Denver Post Business Writer

Friday, September 28, 2001 - Colorado filed suit Thursday against three
major drug manufacturers, including Broomfield-based Geneva
Pharmaceuticals, charging them with antitrust violations that kept
cheaper generic versions of the drug Hytrin off the market while
taxpayers footed part of the bill. 

The state attorney general's office filed the complaint in U.S. District
Court in Miami, alleging Hytrin's maker, Illinois-based Abbott
Laboratories, paid Florida-based Ivax Pharmaceuticals and Geneva
Pharmaceuticals to delay the marketing and sale of generic versions of
Hytrin. 

The states of Kansas and Florida are also party to the suits. 

Hytrin is the brand name for terazosin hydrochloride, prescribed to
provide relief from hypertension and enlarged prostate. 

"The illegal agreements between these companies hurt patients in
Colorado, as well as the state agencies who paid for these drugs for
persons under their care or through Medicaid," said Attorney General Ken
Salazar. "It forced them to pay for an expensive brand-name drug when a
cheaper generic version would have been available." 

State agencies, including Colorado's Medicaid program, had been paying
Abbott, the sole manufacturer of Hytrin, $137.23 for a 100-capsule
bottle of Hytrin before Geneva launched a generic version in August
1999. The state now pays Geneva $18.22 for a 100-capsule bottle of
generic pills. 

The attorney general's office has not determined how much money Colorado
lost by paying the higher drug prices, said Ken Lane, a department
spokesman. 

The state's complaint alleges that Geneva agreed to take cash payments
from Abbott of $4.5 million a month from April 1998 to August 1999 to
not release its less-expensive generic drug. 

Abbott also filed 17 patent-infringement lawsuits against generic drug
manufacturers between 1993 and 1998, and the states that filed suit say
Abbott's intent was to use the suits as an anti-competitive weapon. 

Hytrin has been a significant source of income to Abbott since 1987.
Part of the penalties Colorado is seeking against the drugmaker - as
well as Geneva and Ivax - are unjust enrichments received as a result of
the companies' alleged illegal conduct, according to the Colorado
attorney general's office. 

Colorado is prohibited by law from including in its lawsuit patients who
bought Hytrin through private insurance or with their own money at
pharmacies. But those residents can file their own suits.