AG Nessel Seeks Settlements with Drug Manufacturers Ascend, Citron and Mayne

LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of 45 states and territories seeking court approval of three settlements with Ascend Laboratories, Citron Pharma and Mayne Pharma to resolve allegations that the generic drug manufacturers engaged in a widespread, long-running conspiracy to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unlawfully restrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs.

The States previously reached settlements with generic drug manufacturers Sandoz, Glenmark, Lannett, Bausch, Apotex, and Heritage, and Heritage’s parent company, Emcure, totaling $496.5 million. Under the latest settlements submitted to the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, Ascend will pay $400,000 to the states, and Mayne will pay $650,000. Citron’s settlement only includes non-monetary terms as it has ceased business operations. As part of the settlement, the companies each agreed to meaningful injunctive terms, including a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws.

“Prescription drugs are not optional expenses for people who need them, and no one should have to wonder whether the price they pay has been driven up by illegal deals between drug companies,” said Attorney General Nessel. “When companies put profits ahead of fair competition, patients and families are left paying the price. We are committed to holding accountable those responsible and fighting for a marketplace that gives consumers access to medications they can afford.”

The first generic drug complaint included Heritage and 17 other corporate defendants, two individual defendants, and 15 generic drugs. Two former executives from Heritage Pharmaceuticals, Jeffery Glazer and Jason Malek, have since entered into settlement agreements and are cooperating. The second complaint was filed in 2019 against Teva Pharmaceuticals and 21 of the nation’s largest generic drug manufacturers. That complaint names 16 individual senior executive defendants. The third complaint, to be tried first, focuses on 80 topical generic drugs that account for billions of dollars of sales in the United States and names 26 corporate defendants and 10 individual defendants. The States filed a fourth complaint in 2026 against Novartis AG, Sandoz Group AG and Sandoz AG.

These cases arise from a series of investigations supported by evidence from multiple cooperating witnesses at the center of the various conspiracies, a massive document repository containing more than 20 million records, and a phone‑records database with millions of call‑detail entries and contact information for over 600 sales and pricing personnel across the generics industry. Each complaint addresses a different set of drugs and defendants and lays out an interconnected web of competing industry executives that met with each other during industry dinners, lunches, cocktail parties, and golf outings and communicated via frequent telephone calls, emails and text messages that sowed the seeds for their illegal agreements. Throughout the complaints, defendants use terms like “fair share,” “playing nice in the sandbox,” and “responsible competitor” to describe how they unlawfully discouraged competition, raised prices and enforced an ingrained culture of collusion. Among the records obtained by the States is a two-volume notebook containing the contemporaneous notes of one of the States’ cooperators that memorialized his discussions during phone calls with competitors and internal company meetings over a period of several years.

If you purchased a generic prescription drug between May 2009 and December 2019, you may be eligible for compensation. To determine your eligibility, call 1-866-290-0182 (toll-free), email the settlement website (info@AGGenericDrugs.com), or visit the AG Generic Drugs website itself (www.AGGenericDrugs.com) to submit a claim for compensation.

States and territories joining Attorney General Nessel in the settlements include: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

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