Sandoz, a subsidiary of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG, has agreed to pay US$195 million to avoid trial on charges it conspired to fix the prices of generic drugs, US prosecutors announced on Monday.
The US Department of Justice last year accused Sandoz along with 19 other companies of colluding to artificially inflate the price of about 100 treatments, ranging from non-steroidal anti-inflammatory to drugs for a wide range of diseases.
The price of the treatments multiplied by as much as 10 times, according to the complaint filed in federal court in Connecticut.
“The company agreed to pay a US$195 million criminal penalty and admitted that its sales affected by the charged conspiracies exceeded US$500 million,” the department said in a statement, adding that the misconduct occurred between 2013 and 2015.
“Under the deferred prosecution agreement, Sandoz has agreed to cooperate fully” with the ongoing criminal investigation, it said.
Former Sandoz executive Hector Armando Kellum has pleaded guilty to unspecified charges stemming from the investigation, the department said.
Sandoz had rejected the charges at the time, but on Monday issued a statement admitting “misconduct.”
“We take seriously our compliance with antitrust laws, and in reaching today’s resolution we are not only resolving historical issues, but also underscoring our commitment to continually improving our compliance and training programs, and evolving our controls,” Sandoz president Carol Lynch said.
“We are disappointed that this misconduct occurred in the face of our clear antitrust compliance policies and multiple trainings — and in full contravention of the company’s values,” she said. “Individuals implicated in the underlying conduct are no longer employed by the company.”
Sandoz said it was also negotiating with the department’s civil division to resolve “potential related claims,” and has put aside US$185 million for that.
Other companies accused in the complaint were Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd and US-based Mylan Laboratories Inc.
The department said that two other unnamed companies charged in the investigation had reached agreements with prosecutors similar to that accorded to Sandoz, in which prosecution was suspended in exchange for cooperation.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in