Bristol-Myers $125 Million Plavix Accord Is Approved (Update1)
By David Glovin
bloomberg.com
Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. won final court approval of a $125 million settlement of a lawsuit in which creditors claimed the drugmaker hid information about its effort to settle a patent suit with Apotex Inc.
The case against New York-based Bristol-Myers, filed in 2007, settled in principle in May. U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan yesterday granted final approval of the accord. He previously gave preliminary approval.
According to the complaint, Bristol-Myers entered into a settlement in 2006 that allowed Apotex, based in Weston, Ontario, to make a generic version of Plavix. The investors claimed Bristol-Myers didn’t disclose that as part of the settlement, it agreed to relinquish certain legal rights and entered a secret oral side agreement with Apotex.
“The court hereby finds and concludes that the plan of allocation proposed by lead plaintiff is, in all respects, fair and equitable to the class,” Crotty wrote. Lawyers from Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman LLP were awarded fees of $21.25 million, or 17 percent of the settlement fund.
Salvatore Graziano, a lawyer for the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, the lead plaintiff for the investors in the class-action lawsuit, didn’t return a call for comment.
“Bristol-Myers Squibb is pleased that the court approved the settlement,” spokeswoman Laura Hortas said in a statement. “The company continues to focus on delivering innovative medicines to help patients with serious disease.”
Plavix Sales
Plavix, a blood-thinner whose chemical name is clopidogrel bisulfate, is the world’s second-best-selling medicine, behind Pfizer Inc.’s Lipitor. It generated combined 2008 sales of about $9.5 billion for Bristol-Myers and Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis SA, which sells the drug outside the U.S.
The patent case stemmed from a failed effort by Bristol- Myers to keep Apotex from selling a copy of the medicine until just months before a patent expires in November 2011.
The securities case is In re Bristol Myers Squibb Co. Securities Litigation, 07-cv-5867, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: David Glovin in New York federal court at dglovin@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: December 9, 2009 09:29 EST
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