The pharmaceutical giant AbbVie owes $448 million in an antitrust case after U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle ruled that the AndroGel partner used sham litigation to block the generic versions of their testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) drug from getting to the market. The antitrust lawsuit was filed by the Federal Trade Commission in 2014 against AbbVie and its partner Besins Healthcare Inc., accusing them of filing baseless patent infringement lawsuits in 2011.
AbbVie and Besins entered into a pay-for-delay settlement with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd and Perrigo Company which would delay generic drug competition. Judge Bartle stated, "the FTC has established the actual market reality that defendants possessed monopoly power and illegally and willfully maintained that monopoly power through the filing of sham litigation.''
Nearly 6,000 cases are pending in the TRT multidistrict litigation, alleging that the products led to complications like cardiac arrest, stroke and sudden death. Earlier, two jury trials over AbbVie Inc.'s AndroGel have ended in a multimillion-dollar verdict against the company. Other defendants in the litigation include Abbott Laboratories Inc., Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc., Pfizer Inc., Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc., Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., Eli Lilly & Co., and Actavis Inc. Recently Actavis Incorporation announced plans to settle cases over its TRT drug Androderm, accusing them of failure to warn men about side effects. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly stated both the attorneys had reached a memorandum of understanding for a global settlement.
