Drugs maker fights claims it profiteered from addicts

SHARES in British pharmaceuticals company Indivior swung wildly yesterday after it was accused of profiteering from a drug to treat heroin addicts.

The Slough-based group, which was spun out of Reckitt Benckiser in 2014, makes suboxone, a drug used to help addicts get off heroin and other painkillers.

But it now stands accused of trying to keep cheaper copycat versions of the drug off the market, with 35 American states and the district of Columbia filing a lawsuit against the company.

‘My office will not permit drug companies to engage in anticompetitive conduct that unlawfully extends their monopolies – and their monopoly profits – on drugs,’ said New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman. Indivior said that it ‘intends to continue to vigorously defend its position’.

But shares tumbled nearly 18pc to 268.8p in early trading before closing the day down 3.9pc, or 12.7p, at 313.5p.

A tablet version of the drug was first approved for sale in the United States in 2002. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave the company seven years of exclusive rights to sell the drug so it could recover its research and development costs.

The lawsuit alleges that as the period of exclusivity ended in 2009 and suboxone came under pressure from cheaper copycat versions, Indivior took steps to stop these generic drugs entering the market through ‘a range of anti-competitive conduct’.

It is claimed that Indivior told the FDA that it planned to offer a new dissolvable strip version of the drug instead of the tablet.

The company is said to have tried to convince the regulator that the drug had changed so much that copycats should be rendered invalid – preventing pharmacists from prescribing the cheaper generic pills.

The lawsuit also claims that Indivior raised safety concerns over the tablet in an attempt to persuade the FDA to approve the dissolvable strip rather than generic versions of the pill. The FDA rejected the arguments but by the time the generic pills were on the market many patients had switched to the dissolvable strip, the lawsuit says.