Hagens Berman represents health benefit plans in this class action alleging that Amgen unlawfully extended its monopoly on the blockbuster drug, Enbrel. Amgen is accused of harming purchasers and patients by increasing prescription costs through an anticompetitive scheme to delay the launch of less expensive biosimilars.
WHAT’S THE ISSUE?
Hagens Berman represents plaintiffs that provide or administer healthcare benefits for millions of individuals in this class-action lawsuit against Amgen for allegedly unlawfully delaying competition for its blockbuster drug, Enbrel. The lawsuit accuses Amgen of illegally profiting from this monopoly, reaping billions of dollars in illicit profits while denying purchasers and patients access to lower prices they would have paid in a competitive market. In total, defendants amassed more than $86 billion from cumulative worldwide sales of Enbrel. The plaintiffs allege that if Amgen had acted lawfully, they would have had access to cheaper versions of Enbrel sooner.
AMGEN’S ALLEGED PRICING PLOYS
Enbrel, a biologic product launched by Immunex in 1998, is used to treat a range of inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis. After biopharmaceutical giant Amgen acquired Immunex and the rights to Enbrel in 2002, the drug quickly became Amgen’s most lucrative asset.
A quarter-century later, Enbrel remains “a crown jewel of Amgen’s $28-billion-a-year portfolio,” the complaint states. Attorneys say Enbrel’s extraordinarily high prices — which Amgen has increased nearly every single year — are a result of Amgen’s unlawful campaign to thwart competition.
ENBREL ANTITRUST EXPLAINED
The lawsuit claims that Amgen’s astronomical profits from Enbrel were the result of an unlawful campaign to “buttress and entrench what was once a legitimate, patent-protected Enbrel monopoly” and thereby prevent competition from biosimilar versions of the drug — which, like generics, have no meaningful differences in safety or effectiveness but are significantly less expensive.
Beginning in the mid-2000s, Amgen increased the price of Enbrel nearly every year. But Amgen knew that its Enbrel patents wouldn’t be able to prevent the launch of competing biosimilars — and thus allow Amgen to keep reaping massive profits — for much longer.
In response to the threat of lawful competition, Amgen sought to extend and deepen its monopoly beyond lawful limits, the lawsuit alleges. Amgen did so by obtaining an exclusive license to patent rights from its competitor, Roche, that would have otherwise enabled competing biosimilars to enter the market, buying itself decades more monopoly and pricing power.
Amgen then weaponized the patents against would-be competitors. “Beginning in 2016, Amgen sued every drug company seeking to launch a biosimilar etanercept product to compete with Enbrel. In its lawsuits, Amgen relied on the Roche patents it had unlawfully acquired, suing competitors for allegedly infringing the Roche patents and then utilizing the strength of its overall portfolio to strong-arm competitors into settlement agreements…”
The biopharmaceutical giant’s alleged anticompetitive strategy worked. While Enbrel biosimilars launched in Europe eight years ago, Amgen’s alleged scheme has guaranteed that Enbrel will have no competition in the U.S. before 2029 — more than three decades after it was first launched — and has kept Enbrel prices (and Amgen’s profits) high in the U.S. Enbrel worldwide gross sales exceeded $3.6 billion in 2023 alone.
ABOUT THE ENBREL LAWSUIT
The lawsuit seeks to represent a class of all end payors (including any assignees of such end payors) in the United States and its territories that purchased and/or paid all or part of the purchase price of Enbrel from July 2020 until the anticompetitive effects of the defendants’ alleged conduct (which are ongoing) cease.
The complaint asserts claims for monopolization in violation of state and federal antitrust law, unjust enrichment and violations of state consumer-protection laws. The suit seeks repayment to proposed class members harmed by Amgen’s conduct, as well as an injunction putting an end to Amgen’s alleged unlawful monopoly.
TOP PHARMA LAW FIRM
Hagens Berman is one of the most successful litigation law firms in the U.S. taking on pharmaceutical companies and has achieved total settlements valued at more than $320 billion in class actions, including more than $3.4 billion recovered in lawsuits against Big Pharma. The firm’s pharmaceutical litigation against the industry’s largest sellers and manufacturers includes antitrust schemes, pay-for-delay, IP shams and other forms of wrongdoing that drive up the costs of prescription drugs for consumers and others.
