State & federal enforcers often tout multi-million dollar settlements against pharma companies that pay generic companies to keep a cheaper version of a drug off the market. But do those settlements really discourage anticompetitive behavior? (Thread) news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and…
And the majority of the settlements between enforcers and drugmakers have relatively low or no financial ramifications for alleged bad actors. 
For example, California’s attorney general settled last year with Teva Pharmaceuticals for $69M over the company’s effort to maintain a monopoly on narcolepsy drug Provigil. But that only accounts for about 6% of the drug’s $1.1 billion in revenues for Teva in 2010.
“Even though these dollar amounts sound large, it’s merely a cost of doing business for these drug companies,” says @Sally_Hubbard of pay-for-delay pharma settlements.
Instead, the FTC has focused its enforcement efforts on having the companies agree to injunctions—ranging from 10 years to permanent— and corporate integrity agreements that preclude drugmakers from engaging in the same kind of anticompetitive behavior.
“Pay-for-delay is most certainly still happening,” says @DrSinhaEsq of @HarvardMed & @Northeastern. “The reason it’s not flagged as such in FTC annual documents is likely due to a narrow definition of ‘payment.’” @HarvardMIT_CRS @PORTAL_Research
But there could be a good reason the FTC isn’t going after bigger dollars, says former U.S. Attorney @NettlesBill: “If you put a fine on (pharma companies) you’re not going to put them out of business; all that does is drive up the price of the drug.”
Check out my deep-dive on the issue here: news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and… (fin)
