Back then, legacy Schering-Plough was making billions off of an expensive placebo -- without any clinical proof of efficacy. To be fair, so too was Merck. And pharmacy distributors collectively sued, saying they were being unfairly overcharged -- for a drug that was no better than a generic statin. [One of those was styled as an antitrust suit in Virginia federal court. We didn't separately cover it in real time, as it was largely cumulative, of all the others.]
Okay. Along about 2010, Glenmark and Mylan and others filed with FDA to bring a generic version to market, while the IMPOROVE-IT study was still pending. [In the end, that study showed that we would spend an additional almost $750,000, over seven years in 50 patients, to prevent one additional MI event. Not a great win.]
Fast-forward eight long years. . . . and we now see Merck (as the legacy bag-holder for Fast Fred Hassan) seeking to invoke an arbitration clause in the distribution agreements, and send the pharmacy-distributor antitrust claims to binding private arbitration.
Here is the full 33 page PDF memo of law, just filed overnight -- but it is partially-redacted (for trade secrets).
And it is Dr. Maya Angelou's 90th. . . so I will toss my head back, and smile widely, and speak mellifluously (in but a pale imitation of her voice), about all of that (". . .and still, I rise") -- even as we reflect on what is now a half-century of. . . lost wisdom (had he lived, to ripen into old age, and his golden years) -- all due to an assassin's rifle shot, in Memphis -- at 6 PM local, this evening. . . .
Onward. Just the same. . . travel well; travel light -- one and all.
नमस्ते
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