Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Inc. (DRL) sued Amarin Pharma Inc. and its subsidiaries on Tuesday over allegations that the drug company has violated federal and state antitrust laws through attempting to block market entry of the plaintiff’s generic drug product, hoping to insulate the defendants’ Vascepa from competition.
DRL based its anticompetition claims on Amarin’s alleged cornering of the market for the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in icosapent ethyl, the generic version of Vascepa. Although couched in redacted details, the Tuesday complaint claimed that Amarin entered into an “exclusive or de facto exclusive” agreement with an unknown party that resulted in the foreclosing of suppliers of the API; thus, DRL contended that it would have been able to launch its competing generic product in August 2020 if not for the alleged Amarin agreement.
According to the complaint, Amarin had been entering into agreements with the only viable suppliers of this critical ingredient since as early as 2012, and the most recent purported agreement was the final nail in the coffin for DRL’s planned icosapent ethyl product. The plaintiff said it tried to contact these suppliers, along with others that were not in agreements with Amarin, but all were unable to provide the materials quickly enough for DRL’s proposed launch date.
The plaintiff noted that the alleged cornering of the icosapent ethyl API market by Amarin came after DRL prevailed in patent litigation initiated by Amarin in March 2020 over Vascepa. Accordingly, the plaintiff alleged, since Amarin could not convince the courts to stop DRL from entering the market with its product, the defendants resorted to anticompetitive conduct.
“Amarin’s hoarding of icosapent ethyl API supplies is contrary to industry practice, cannot be justified by any legitimate business reason, and can only be explained as part of an anticompetitive strategy to prevent and delay generic competition to its branded Vascepa,” the complaint claimed.
The API supplier that DRL ended up employing for its generic product launch is unable to provide the API until more than a year after the original proposed launch date; thus, DRL is seeking monetary damages for its alleged lost profits from having to delay market entry, as well as treble damages and an enjoinment of Amarin and its affiliates from continuing the alleged anticompetitive conduct.
Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf LLC represents DRL.