FTC sues AbbVie, Teva over AndroGel delay

The US Federal Trade Commission yesterday sued Drugmakers AbbVie Inc and Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries  for colluding to prevent generic versions of AndroGel for men with low testosterone, from getting to market, Reuters reported.

According to the FTC, AndroGel users paid hundreds of millions of dollars more than necessary due to the companies' actions. The FTC has asked the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to order AbbVie to refund users that money.

The case comes as the second filed by the FTC over AndroGel, AbbVie's second-highest-selling product, with sales of $472 million in the first half of 2014, according to a company filing with the government.

In the latest case, AbbVie has been accused by the FTC of filing "baseless" patent infringement lawsuits against Israeli firm Teva and another company to stop them from selling generic AndroGel.

AbbVie however, reached an agreement with Teva under which Teva would not bring out a cheaper version of AndroGel in exchange for winning AbbVie's permission to sell an authorised generic of the cholesterol drug Tricor.

AbbVie declined comment on the lawsuit filed yesterday, though it said in an email that "our patent infringement lawsuits were appropriate and our settlement agreements were lawful, as well as in the best interest of all parties."

Meanwhile, the FTC said in a statement, ''An agreement between AbbVie, the maker of AndroGel, and Teva is anticompetitive and blocked consumers' access to a lower-cost alternative to the testosterone-replacement drug," Bloomberg reported.

According to FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez who spoke on a conference call with reporters, the case underscored the commission's continuing commitment on behalf of consumers to ensure that US healthcare markets remained competitive, resulting in lower drug prices and greater innovation for consumers.

The FTC is cracking down on so-called pay-for-delay agreements in which brand-name drugmakers compensate generics producers for delaying sales of a particular medication. According to the commission, its enforcement efforts received a boost with the Supreme Court ruling antitrust law might bar the deals.

According to Dirk Van Eeden, a spokesman for AbbVie, based in North Chicago, Illinois, the company's payments resolving patent litigation with generic-drug makers were lawful.