Zetia Pay-to-Delay Plaintiffs Propose Payer, Purchaser Classes

The distributors and insurers claiming Merck & Co. led a scheme to delay generic competition for the cholesterol drug Zetia asked a Virginia federal judge to certify separate classes of purchasers and payers.

The multidistrict lawsuit accuses Merck of getting Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd. to abandon its competing product by giving it exclusive permission to sell an authorized generic and agreeing not to compete with it. That allegedly constituted an unlawful “reverse payment” to co-defendant Glenmark for delaying its own generic. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Such agreements, also called “pay ...