In a major authorized victory for client safety, Indiana Legal professional Basic Todd Rokita introduced a $6.25 million settlement on February 9, 2026, with pharmaceutical giants Viatris Inc. and Pfizer Inc. The settlement resolves an antitrust lawsuit filed in early 2025, alleging that the businesses engaged in a coordinated conspiracy to inflate the worth of EpiPens—a lifesaving machine for these affected by extreme allergic reactions—by greater than 600%.
The settlement marks a pivotal second within the state’s ongoing efforts to curb “Huge Pharma” practices. Legal professional Basic Rokita emphasised the gravity of the misconduct, stating, “Some pharmaceutical corporations have prioritized earnings over sufferers. However by demonstrating that there are extreme penalties for illegal techniques to overcharge Hoosiers, we are able to deter this conduct sooner or later.” The funds are meant to deal with the monetary hurt inflicted on Indiana households and the state’s healthcare system.
The core of the authorized problem concerned allegations that the businesses violated the Indiana Misleading Client Gross sales Act and the Medicaid False Claims Act. Based on the criticism, Viatris (shaped by the merger of Mylan and a Pfizer subsidiary) paid pharmacy profit managers (PBMs) vital rebates to make sure EpiPen remained the unique alternative on insurance coverage formularies. This technique successfully blocked lower-cost opponents from coming into the market, leaving customers with no reasonably priced alternate options.
Moreover, the lawsuit highlighted a tactical shift through which the businesses allegedly paid medical doctors to endorse the “medical necessity” of a two-pack of EpiPens. This allowed the producers to cease promoting particular person items, forcing households to purchase extra medicine than they could have in any other case wanted at a considerably larger value. This shift occurred because the record value for a two-pack rose from roughly $100 in 2007 to over $600 by 2016.
The Indiana settlement follows a protracted historical past of nationwide controversy surrounding the EpiPen. In 2016, then-Mylan CEO Heather Bresch confronted a grilling from Congress, the place she defended the worth hikes as mandatory for product enhancements and consciousness packages. Throughout her testimony, Bresch famously described the EpiPen as “my child” whereas trying to deflect blame onto the complexities of the US healthcare system, saying she wished the corporate had “higher anticipated the magnitude” of the general public’s outrage.
Further historic sources reveal that the 2016 value gouging scandal was not nearly retail costs, but additionally authorities overcharges. In 2017, Mylan finalized a $465 million settlement with the US Division of Justice after it was found the corporate had misclassified the EpiPen as a generic drug for the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program. This allowed them to pay considerably decrease rebates to the federal government regardless of the product’s brand-name dominance and excessive price ticket.
Critics and lawmakers have lengthy pointed to a scarcity of competitors as the first driver of those value spikes. Throughout a 2016 Home Oversight listening to, Chairman Jason Chaffetz famous that government pay at Mylan had risen over 600% alongside the drug’s value, remarking that prime compensation “doesn’t add up for lots of people” whereas dad and mom have been struggling to afford a tool that “higher darn properly be in your backpack” if a beloved one has a life-threatening allergy.
The 2026 Indiana settlement is a part of a broader “intensifying effort” by Rokita’s workplace to deal with drug affordability. The Legal professional Basic can also be litigating in opposition to Eli Lilly and different producers over insulin value inflation, which he claims has elevated by greater than 1,000% over the previous decade. “Pharmaceutical corporations shouldn’t benefit from Hoosiers,” Rokita asserted, signaling that the EpiPen victory is only one part of a bigger technique to carry the trade accountable.
Though the businesses concerned within the EpiPen settlement deny any wrongdoing, the monetary penalty is a stark reminder of the authorized dangers of anti-competitive habits. For Indiana customers, the $6.25 million is a measure of restitution for years of being “held hostage” by inflated prices for a tool many depend on to remain alive, marking one other chapter within the long-running battle in opposition to pharmaceutical value gouging.
