Ranbaxy-NHS settlement at £4.5 million

EPP News Bureau - New Delhi

Ranbaxy Laboratories and the UK Department of Health announced that the Indian major will pay the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) £4.5 million (Rs 38.5 crore) to settle a price-fixing lawsuit. The company will make the payment without admission of liability and will co-operate in ongoing proceedings.

“The NHS is one of Ranbaxy’s biggest customers. We don’t want to be locked in a protracted legal battle with its associated cost and loss of time,” said a Ranbaxy spokesman.

In December 2003, the Department of Health had launched a lawsuit against Ranbaxy and four other drugmakers for alleged anti-competitive cartel conduct. It alleged that Ranbaxy fixed the prices of generics supplied to the NHS between 1996 and 2000. Ranbaxy is the the first to settle the claims. Meanwhile, Ranbaxy announced that it has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), to manufacture and market Nitrofurantoin Monohydrate /macrocrystals. A generic alternative to Macrobid, a brand owned by Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals, this product has a market of $80 million in the US.