Attorney General Rayfield Secures Patient Relief Over Inflated Drug Prices

A 48-state and territory coalition, led in part by Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, secured preliminary federal court approval of a distribution plan drawn from settlements totaling approximately $96.5 million against multiple generic drug manufacturers. The settling defendants are Glenmark, Lannett, Bausch, Apotex, Heritage, and Heritage's parent company Emcure. The distribution plan is designed to return funds to individuals who purchased covered generic drugs between May 2009 and December 2019. The enforcement effort spans four separate complaints filed beginning in 2016. The first complaint named Heritage and 17 other corporate defendants, two individual defendants, and 15 generic drugs. The second complaint, filed in 2019, targeted Teva Pharmaceuticals and 21 other large generic drug manufacturers, naming 16 individual senior executives. The third complaint addresses 80 topical generic drugs accounting for billions of dollars in U.S. sales and names 26 corporate defendants and 10 individual defendants. A fourth complaint, filed in 2026, alleges that Novartis AG, Sandoz Group AG, and Sandoz AG are liable for Sandoz's alleged conduct and for fraudulent transfer of assets. The complaints allege that competing industry executives met and communicated regularly and used code language including "fair share," "playing nice in the sandbox," and "responsible competitor" to coordinate price increases, suppress competition, and enforce a culture of collusion. Seven pharmaceutical executives are cooperating with the states, and the investigation drew on cooperating witnesses, millions of documents, and a large phone record database.