Teva Pharmaceuticals to pay $225M fine to settle price-fixing charges
Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Teva Pharmaceuticals has agreed to pay a $225 million fine, in a settlement with the Justice Department over criminal price-fixing charges.
According to the deferred prosecution agreement announced Monday, Teva will pay the fine over five years, with $22.5 million due each year from 2024 through 2027, and $135 million due in 2028.
"The company is pleased to put these charges behind us and believes that we remain well-positioned to defend against related civil claims," Teva said in a statement Monday. "We are focused on delivering high-quality medicines to the patients around the world who need them."
In addition to the fine, Teva will be required to make a $50 million donation of two generic drugs -- clotrimazole for skin infections and tobramycin for eye infections and cystic fibrosis -- to humanitarian organizations. The company will also be required to divest a key generic drug treating cholesterol, called pravastatin, to a third-party buyer.
In exchange for the settlement, Teva will avoid any mandatory exclusion from U.S. federal healthcare programs.
"The resolutions include extraordinary remedial measures that require the breakup of assets and restore competition to the industry," Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, of the Justice Department's antitrust division, said in a statement. "Companies in heavily regulated industries are on notice that the division will not hesitate to hold them accountable and will not tolerate recidivism."
The settlement comes after Teva Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay $523 million in November to settle claims over the company's role in New York's opioid crisis.
In Monday's DPA, Teva admitted to participating in three conspiracies, after a former employee agreed with competitors on three separate occasions with three different customers that Teva would not bid on an opportunity to supply the customer with a generic product.
Teva promised new controls and procedures within the company that will prevent price-fixing in the future.
"Teva has robust and consistent compliance controls in place designed to prevent this type of activity from reoccurring, and has committed, as part of the DPA, to maintain those controls going forward."
