Allergan to reportedly settle Alzheimer’s therapy lawsuit for $750m

It has been reported that Allergan Plc would pay $750 million to settle a class action lawsuit from a group of direct purchasers of Alzheimer’s disease therapy Namenda, the drugmaker said, in a resolution to the litigation that was set to face trial on Monday.

The lawsuit alleged that Allergan’s Forest units worked to delay generic competition for Namenda, including entering an illegal agreement with its competitor Mylan NV.

Forest, the original maker of Namenda, discontinued the tablets taken twice daily in February 2014 and replaced it with a version taken once daily before the launch of a generic version in July 2015. Days later, Allergan, then called Actavis PLC, announced its acquisition of Forest.

The plaintiff claimed that the plan to drop the older version caused patients to switch to the newer version in advance, the report by Reuters said, forcing patients to pay for Namenda who would otherwise be taking the generic version.

The company has stated that the settlement makes no admission of wrongdoing on its part and will be recorded as a charge to its third-quarter earnings, the report states.

The drug was first approved in 2003 for the treatment of moderate to severe dementia related to Alzheimer’s disease.