Frith & Ellerman Law Firm, based in Roanoke, Virginia, recently helped plaintiffs settle one of the largest “opt out” pharmaceutical drug recovery settlements on record. The $85 million settlement was entered on July 8, 2024, by Virginia pharmaceutical company Indivior, agreeing to resolve a lawsuit alleging healthcare fraud.
The scheme was initially brought to the attention of federal authorities by a whistleblowing employee of the defendant.
In the case, plaintiffs alleged fraud and antitrust violations in the sale and marketing of opioid dependence drug Suboxone. Plaintiffs were five healthcare benefit plans that paid for Suboxone as prescribed to their member patients. Indivior manufactured and sold Suboxone, originally in tablet form and, beginning in 2010, sold Suboxone in a new film formulation.
Plaintiffs, who opted out of an end-payor class in Suboxone multidistrict litigation, filed suit in the fall of 2020 in Roanoke County Circuit Court, alleging Indivior engaged in a fraudulent and anticompetitive “product hop” designed to prevent generic competition by converting the market from Suboxone tablets to Suboxone film.
In October 2023, a jury unanimously ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor after a week-long trial on defendants’ plea in bar. The plea was based on a statute of limitations defense. After deliberating for roughly an hour-and-a-half, the seven Roanoke County jurors ruled in favor of the healthcare benefit plans and against Indivior, holding plaintiffs’ claims were not time-barred.
The case settled seven days before the five-week merits trial was set to begin. Plaintiffs were represented by Thomas (Bo) Frith IV, a partner at Frith & Ellerman Law Firm in Roanoke, Virginia.