Allergan settles Alzheimer's therapy lawsuit for $750M
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(Reuters) — Allergan PLC would pay $750 million to settle a class action lawsuit from a group of direct purchasers of Alzheimer's disease therapy Namenda, the drugmaker said, in a resolution to the litigation that was set to face trial on Monday.
The settlement makes no admission of wrongdoing on its part and will be recorded as a charge to its third-quarter earnings, the company said.
The lawsuit alleged that Allergan's Forest units worked to delay generic competition for Namenda, including entering an illegal agreement with its competitor Mylan NV.
Forest, the original maker of Namenda, discontinued the tablets taken twice daily in February 2014 and replaced it with a version taken once daily before the launch of a generic version in July 2015.
Days later, Allergan, then called Actavis PLC, announced its acquisition of Forest.
The plaintiff claimed that the plan to drop the older version caused patients to switch to the newer version in advance, forcing them to pay for Namenda for patients who would otherwise be taking the generic version.
The drug was first approved by the U.S. health regulator in 2003 for the treatment of moderate to severe dementia related to the memory-robbing disease.
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