Tag: Competition

The Federal Trade Commission issued an administrative complaint alleging that Benco, Henry Schein and Patterson, the nation's three largest dental supply companies, violated U.S. antitrust laws by conspiring to refuse to provide discounts to or otherwise serve buying groups representing dental practitioners. These buying groups sought lower prices for dental supplies and equipment on behalf of solo and small-group dental practices seeking to gain discounts by aggregating and leveraging the collective purchasing power and bargaining skills of the individual practices. The complaint also alleges an FTC Act Section 5 violation against Benco for inviting a fourth competing distributor to join the conspiracy.

Reckitt Benckiser Group plc has agreed to pay $50 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated the antitrust laws through a deceptive scheme to thwart lower-priced generic competition to its branded drug Suboxone. According to the complaint, before the generic versions of Suboxone tablets became available, Reckitt and its former subsidiary Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals, now known as Indivior, Inc., developed a dissolvable oral film version of Suboxone and worked to shift prescriptions to this patent-protected film. Worried that doctors and patients would not want to switch to Suboxone Film, Reckitt allegedly employed a “product hopping” scheme where the company misrepresented that the film version of Suboxone was safer than Suboxone tablets because children are less likely to be accidentally exposed to the film product. Invidior has agreed to pay an additional $10 million to settle FTC charges.