State joins 'product hopping' lawsuit
Attorney General George Jepsen announced Friday that the state has joined in a federal lawsuit charging two pharmaceutical firms with "product hopping" that illegally blocked generic competition to the opioid-addiction drug Suboxone.
Product hopping involves a firm making small changes to a product to extend patent protections. In this case, the companies involved encouraged clients to switch from the tablet form of Suboxone to a film delivery system that allowed the medicine to dissolve in patients' mouths but, according to summary of the suit, "provided no real benefit over the tablet."
Connecticut is one of 35 states and the District of Columbia to have joined the lawsuit filed Thursday. The suit charges the former Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals Inc. — now known as Indivior PLC — and MonoSol Rx with initiating a scheme to force patients to pay artificially high prices for Suboxone.
"The circumstances alleged in this case are particularly egregious in that, in the midst of an epidemic of opioid abuse and addiction, Connecticut consumers and taxpayers have had to pay more for a drug that may help to mitigate some of the problem," Jepsen said in a statement.
According to a summary of the case, the two pharmaceutical firms are accused of "conspiring to switch Suboxone from a tablet version to a film ... in order to prevent or delay generic alternatives and maintain artificially inflated profits."
The states noted that Suboxone, which racks up more than $1 billion in sales annually, continued to be sold in tablet form in foreign countries, but was eventually withdrawn from the U.S. market after film became the standard of care.
They said the companies' attempt to maintain their market for Suboxone even after generic competition should have dramatically lowered prices violated both state and federal laws. The suit charges the companies with conspiracy to monopolize and illegal restraint of trade and seeks monetary relief for excessive costs incurred by Medicaid, state healthcare programs and individuals.
"One of my highest priorities is determining if the dramatic increases in pharmaceutical prices over the last several years — for both brand and generic drugs — reflect violations of laws within my authority to enforce," said Jepsen in a statement.
Other states joining the suit in addition to Connecticut are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington.
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