AstraZeneca reaches $103 million settlement over 'inflated' drug prices in USA

Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca has reached agreement to pay $103 million to settle litigation involving claims that it inflated prices for its cancer drug Zoladex goserelin acetate) and asthma treatment Pulmicort Respules (budesonide) in the USA. The settlement is subject to court approval, a date for which has not been set.

The class-action law suit. Originally filed in 2002, claimed AstraZeneca inflated the Average Wholesale Price (AWP), which is used as a benchmark for almost all prescription drug sales in the USA. The settlement adds to a series of victories and verdicts in the AWP cases filed by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro (HBSS), which the law firm says has returned hundreds of million dollars to consumers and third-party payers from an array of pharmaceutical defendants.

This proposed settlement provides $13 million for two classes of plaintiffs: third-party payers who paid some or all of their insured's Medicare co-insurance for Zoladex and/or Pulmicort Respules in Massachusetts, and a second class that includes consumers and third-party payers who paid cash or a co-pay for these AstraZeneca drugs outside of Medicare in Massachusetts.