New York State Files Antitrust Suit Against Maker of Alzheimer’s Drug

New York State’s attorney general filed an antitrust lawsuit seeking to stop a pharmaceutical company from forcing patients with Alzheimer’s disease to switch to a new version of a widely used drug. The lawsuit contends that the switch is designed to blunt competition from low-priced generic versions of the medication. Forest Laboratories, now owned by Actavis, announced in February that it would stop selling the existing tablet form of the drug, Namenda, in favor of new extended-release capsules called Namenda XR that can be taken once a day instead of twice. While the company said that patients preferred the newer drug, it has made little secret of its desire to switch all patients to the newer form, which has a longer patent life, before the old tablets face generic competition in July. The strategy would make it much harder for the generics to gain traction. The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, says the step is an illegal attempt by Forest to maintain its monopoly even after its patent expires. “A drug company manipulating vulnerable patients and forcing physicians to alter treatment plans unnecessarily, simply to protect corporate profits, is unethical and illegal,” the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, said in a statement.

Source/more: New York Times