NBC4 | Bonnie Becker
According to the Office of Attorney General Dave Yost, Ohio and 44 other states have filed an antitrust lawsuit against 20 different generic drug manufacturers. The manufacturers are accused of a conspiracy to inflate and manipulate prices in an effort to reduce competition and unfairly restrain trade for more than 100 different generic drugs.
The generic drugs listed in the lawsuit account for billions of dollars of sales in the United States. The lawsuit alleges that the accused manufacturers’ actions led to inflated pricing that affected the health insurance market, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as individuals who had no choice but to pay higher prices for their prescribed medications.
In a media release from the Ohio Attorney General’s office on May 13, Yost states, “Ohioans who need medicine might think generic drugs would be their cheapest option — but some manufacturers have rigged the systems to avoid competition. That’s not how a free market works, and the conspiracy to avoid competition makes prices higher — and it’s against the law. This lawsuit is the prescription for lower medicine prices in a free market.”