RxUSA Files Complaint Against 16 Pharma Manufacturers

Seeking more than $580 million in damages and the recovery of nearly $1.8 billion in punitive damages, RxUSA Wholesale (Port Washington, NY, www.rxusawholesale.com) filed a complaint against 16 major US pharmaceutical manufacturers and 5 drug wholesalers.

The 163-page complaint appears to target emerging distribution practices prompted by drug-pedigree requirements in state and federal regulations, measures intended to halt gray-market profiteering and to keep counterfeit products off the US market by closing points of entry.  

According to a release issued by RxUSA, the company alleges "violations of various provisions of the US antitrust laws, New York State Donnelly law violations, restraint of trade, illegal boycott, and...violations of the federal RICO statutes and Federal Securities' laws and regulations."

Among its allegations, the company charges the existence of a "concerted effort" to "eliminate competition in the pharmaceutical industry by destroying the 'secondary wholesale' class of trade." This effort has kept drug prices "artificially high" and has reportedly weakened "the integrity and security of the nation's drug supply."

Manufacturers named in the complaint are: Alcon, AstraZeneca, Boehringer, BMS, Eisai, Forest, GSK, Kos, Merck, Novartis, Organon, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, Schering-Plough, Takeda, and Wyeth.