US consumer groups in court over generics

A coalition of US consumer groups has filed lawsuits againstAstraZeneca and Barr Labs, claiming that an agreement signed by the manufacturers in 1993 kept a generic version of Nolvadex (tamoxifen) off the market and cost breast cancer patients tens of millions of dollars in overpayments.

The lawsuits were filed in the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, by the Prescription Access Litigation project, which last month began similar proceedings against Bristol-Myers Squibb, claiming that it had used illegal tactics to artificially maintain a monopoly over the manufacturing, distribution and sales of the anxiolytic BuSpar (buspirone; Marketletter April 16). Another class-action lawsuit has since been filed against B-MS by the Stop Patient Abuse Now Coalition.

At the time of the BuSpar case, PAL project director Kim Shellenberger had warned that further lawsuits were on their way, and she now describes the Nolvadex agreement, under which Zeneca (as AstraZeneca was in 1993) paid Barr $21 million to keep the generic off the market, as "illegal" and "egregious." The deal is also now under investigation by the Justice Department.