Select an option below to continue reading this premium story.
Already a Honolulu Star-Advertiser subscriber? Log in now to continue reading.
Hawaii will receive $1 million, part of a nationwide $102.5 million settlement, from Indivior, the maker of prescription drug Suboxone. Forty other states and the District of Columbia were involved in the lawsuit.
In 2016, a group of states filed a complaint against the pharmaceutical company alleging that it used illegal means to switch Suboxone from a tablet to a dissolving film in order to destroy the market for tablets while preserving its own monopoly. The switch resulted in states and consumers paying more for the opioid addiction treatment than they would have otherwise in a competitive market, according to the lawsuit.
The settlement was negotiated by 42 attorneys general, including Hawaii Deputy Attorney General Rod Kimura, and has been submitted for approval to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. A trial was scheduled for September.
“We are very pleased with the successful outcome of the law enforcement initiative challenging the scheme to maintain the drug monopoly,” Kimura said in a news release.
The negotiated settlement also requires Indivior to disclose citizen petitions to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding the introduction of new products or any changes to corporate control to the states to ensure the prevention of similar behavior by the drugmaker.