Posted on: Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Hawai'i to get $165,000 from drug settlement

Advertiser Staff

Hawai'i will receive an estimated $165,000 as its share of a settlement of a lawsuit brought by the 50 states against the maker of a popular heart medication and other companies.

The $80 million settlement was reached against Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Andrx Corp. and affiliated companies.

Hawai'i Attorney General Mark Bennett said the state will use its $165,000 share to reimburse Hawai'i consumers and state agencies for their purchases of the drug Cardizem CD.

The federal lawsuit, filed in Michigan in 2001, alleged that the companies illegally agreed that in return for a payment from Aventis to Andrx of nearly $90 million, Andrx would refrain from marketing a less expensive, generic version of Cardizem CD.

With the delay in the generic drug, the lawsuit charged, consumers and agencies paid higher prices for the prescription drug.

The settlement requires the two companies to pay $80 million into a fund that will compensate consumers, agencies and companies that overpaid between 1998 and January 2003.