Teva Pharmaceuticals will serve as the defendant in a bellwether trial over an alleged industrywide scheme to fix generic drug prices, a Pennsylvania judge ruled July 13.
The bellwether trial will serve to determine if numerous lawsuits filed against generic drugmakers should be combined into a class-action case.
The lawsuits accuse the world's top generic drugmakers of a conspiracy to fix, maintain and stabilize prices of generic drugs and engage in market and customer allocations of 200 generics.
The suits have been consolidated in a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. They include antitrust suits from large healthcare companies, enforcement action by nearly every state attorney general and proposed class actions on behalf of drug distributors and retail pharmacies, according to Bloomberg Law.
Defendants had asked the court to use a lawsuit against Heritage Pharmaceuticals as a bellwether instead of Teva's, arguing it is less complex and more manageable, but the judge Cynthia Rufe, denied that request.