In 2017, three indirect-purchaser antitrust class actions were filed against Johnson & Johnson and Janssen Biotech, Inc., alleging that they engaged in anticompetitive conduct relating to the sale and marketing of J&J’s REMICADE (infliximab). The class actions were brought by employee welfare benefit plans, specifically the National Employees Health Plan, the Welfare Fund of Plumbers Local Union No. 200, and the Local 295 IBT Employer Group Welfare Fund. The class action cases brought by the welfare benefit plans followed an earlier antitrust complaint filed by Pfizer against J&J and Janssen. The class action plaintiffs alleged that J&J “worked to suppress competition and raise prices to purchases of [REMICADE] by imposing a web of exclusionary contracts on both health insurers and healthcare providers.” Further, the complaints alleged that, when Pfizer launched its competing INFLECTRA (infliximab-dyyb) in 2016, J&J “deployed improper exclusionary tactics to maintain the dominance of its flagship product.”
Discovery in the indirect-purchaser antitrust actions were consolidated with discovery in the antitrust action brough by Pfizer. As we previously reported, the Pfizer antitrust action settled in 2021.
In April 2022, the parties in the indirect-purchaser antitrust class action stipulated to a settlement wherein Defendants were to deposit $25 million into a settlement fund with attorneys’ fees and expenses and the like to be subtracted from that fund. The court preliminarily approved the settlement in August 2022. In March 2023, the court granted Plaintiffs’ Motion for Final Approval of Settlement, Plan of Allocation and Distribution, Award of Attorneys’ Fees and Expenses, and Service Awards, which among other things, awarded class counsel $7 million in attorneys’ fees and $2.3 million in expenses.