Consumers Appeal to revive class action accusing AbbVie of drug price fixing

A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit reviewed a consumer class action that accuses AbbVie of orchestrating a scheme to artificially raise the price of Humira, the first drug to exceed $20 billion in annual sales. According to the complaint, AbbVie set a fictitious list price and then provided massive, hidden rebates to pharmacy benefit managers to secure formula replacement, while also copying price increases from rival Amgen’s Enbrel in a practice called shadow pricing.

Plaintiffs’ lawyer Steve Berman said the district court dismissed the case without considering these facts, and cited a House Oversight Committee report labeling the practices “unsustainable, unjustified, and unfair.” AbbVie’s attorney Sean Berkowitz argued that patients can obtain the drug through various assistance programs and that consumer-protection law is the wrong avenue for price-control issues. Judges Amy St. Eve, Doris Pryor, and Josh Kolar probed the specifics of the alleged unfair conduct and the applicability of the legal test for unfair business practices. The panel has not yet issued a ruling and will decide the matter later.