Barr reaches FTC settlement
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- November
- 29
Barr Laboratories Inc. of Pomona has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that requires the company to promise it will not enter agreements that stifle competition.
The commission alleged in a November 2005 lawsuit that Barr’s agreement with pharmaceutical company Warner Chilcott Ltd. illegally delayed Barr’s generic version of Warner Chilcott’s Ovcon birth control pill from reaching the market.
As part of the settlement, Barr must also notify the FTC of other agreements it has with branded drug makers that have the potential to harm competition, the FTC said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Barr, which is a subsidiary of Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., received $20 million from Warner Chilcott in return for Barr’s agreement not to sell a generic version of Ovcon until May 2009, the FTC alleged in its lawsuit.
The FTC said Warner Chilcott, facing the possibility of a court order, abandoned the part of the agreement that kept Barr from marketing the generic version. That prompted Barr to start selling a generic version, giving women who were taking Ovcon the chance to get a less expensive product, the FTC said.
Meanwhile, Barr has gotten the the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s approval to make and sell a generic version of Forest Pharmaceuticals, Inc.’s Combunox oxycodone HCl and ibuprofen tablets.
Barr plans to start making the product immediately. The tablets, which treat pain, had sales of $4 million during the year that ended in September, Barr said, citing industry data.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 5:34 pm by Allan Drury.
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