Vascepa Antitrust

Hagens Berman serves as interim co-lead counsel in an antitrust class-action lawsuit representing a proposed class of indirect purchasers of the drug Vascepa. The pending lawsuit against drugmaker Amarin centers upon Amarin’s alleged attempts to delay generic competition for Vascepa, its only pharmaceutical product. The lawsuit states Amarin did this by preventing companies from obtaining the core ingredient needed to manufacture generic versions of the drug.

ANTITRUST ALLEGATIONS AGAINST AMARIN FOR VASCEPA

Vascepa is a prescription medication approved for reducing triglycerides and, when administered with a statin, to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and other heart conditions. The plaintiffs represented by Hagens Berman allege that Amarin staved off inevitable competition for Vascepa by entering into long term and exclusive, or de facto exclusive, supply agreements with every approved manufacturer of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in Vascepa. These alleged actions prevented those suppliers from selling their API product to Amarin’s would-be generic competitors, according to the complaint

The indirect purchasers of Vascepa allege that these contracts — which are of the type regularly treated with suspicion under antitrust laws — effectively prevented competitors from coming to market with generic Vascepa products for more than a year.

Amarin pursued its alleged API scheme after courts had already invalidated the patents protecting Vascepa and after Amarin had exhausted every regulatory means to prevent and delay generic competition.

According to the complaint, by boxing competitors out of the market, Amarin was able continue charging supracompetitive prices and eke the most profit it could out of Vascepa at the expense of the indirect purchaser plaintiffs and others who purchased Vascepa.

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Hagens Berman is one of the most successful litigation law firms in the U.S. taking on pharmaceutical companies and has achieved more than $320 billion in settlement benefits in cases against Big Pharma's largest sellers and manufacturers for antitrust schemes, pay-for-delay, IP shams and other forms of wrongdoing that drive up the costs of prescription drugs for consumers and others.