Generic-Drug Makers Fall as Justice Department Threatens to Sue

• January 19 2018
• Caroline Chen, David McLaughlin

Shares of generic-drug makers including Mylan NV and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. fell after the Justice Department’s antitrust division said it might sue them for damages in a price-fixing probe.

Shares of generic-drug makers including Mylan NV and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. fell after the Justice Department’s antitrust division said it might sue them for damages in a price-fixing probe.

If taxpayers were overcharged because drugmakers conspired to raise the price of drugs, the Justice Department will consider suing to seek damages, Makan Delrahim, the division’s chief, said in a talk on Friday at George Mason University’s law school in Virginia.

Mylan declined 2 percent to $45.56 at 11:38 a.m. in New York, while Teva’s U.S. depositary receipts dropped 2 percent to $20.29 and Endo International Plc, another large maker of generic medicines, fell 4.8 percent to $7.

The three drugmakers are among more than a dozen companies targeted by the Justice Department and state attorneys general in a multi-year investigation into generic drug price-fixing. So far, the probe has led to guilty pleas from two former executives of Heritage Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Emcure Ltd.