Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA)

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ALERT! TEVA Charged For Generic Drugs Price-Fixing Probe

U.S. Poised to Charge Teva in Generic Drugs Price-Fixing Probe
Aug. 25, 2020, 2:16 PM

U.S. prosecutors are preparing to charge Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. with conspiring with competitors to raise prices for generic drugs, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The Justice Department is planning to charge Teva as soon as Tuesday after the company rebuffed a settlement that would have required paying a criminal penalty and admitting wrongdoing, said the person, who declined to be named because the matter is confidential.

A spokesperson for Teva, which is based in Israel, declined to comment.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/pharma-and-life-sciences/u-s-poised-to-charge-teva-in-generic-drugs-price-fixing-probe

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Drug firm bets it won't be charged

In the coming days, the Justice Department will decide whether to file criminal charges against one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies suspected of colluding with rivals to inflate the prices of widely used drugs.

The company, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, is betting that in the middle of a deadly pandemic, the Trump administration won't dare to come down hard on the largest supplier of generic drugs in the United States.

It is a high-stakes gamble that could affect millions of Americans who rely on Teva's dozens of inexpensive generic drugs, as well as its brand-name products like Copaxone, for multiple sclerosis, and Ajovy, for migraines. Teva officials say criminal charges could cripple the Israeli company and potentially leave it unable to sell drugs to federal programs like Medicare.

For years, the Justice Department and state prosecutors have been investigating what they describe as a conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies to increase the prices of popular drugs. The department has already extracted guilty pleas and $224 million in penalties from four other drug companies.

Lawyers for Teva, which prosecutors believe was deeply involved in the conspiracy, until recently had been holding settlement negotiations with officials in the Justice Department's antitrust division. But in April, the company all but walked away from the talks, according to people on both sides of the discussions.