AstraZeneca Dodges $10 Billion Threat As Nexium Deal Cleared by Jury

AstraZeneca Plc dodged a damages award that might have reached $10 billion after a U.S. jury found the drugmaker’s deal with Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. to delay a generic version of the top-selling heartburn tablet Nexium wasn’t unreasonably anticompetitive (In re Nexium (Esomeprazole) Antitrust Litig., D. Mass., 1:12-md-02409, jury verdict 12/5/14).

The verdict, handed down Dec. 5 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, follows a six-week trial in which dozens of wholesalers, drugstore chains and a class of possibly hundreds of thousands of individual consumers claimed they were overcharged for the drug for years as ...