Five plaintiffs’ firms are seeking $88 million in legal fees for their lead roles in a $264 million class action antitrust settlement in a case that alleged Viatris, the drugmaker formerly known as Mylan, maneuvered to delay generic competition to the EpiPen allergy treatment.
The firms, Sharp Law; Keller Rohrback; Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd; Pritzker Levine; and Burns Charest, on Friday asked a US federal court judge in Kansas to grant final approval of the settlement with Mylan, which was sued over its marketing strategy for the life-saving EpiPen auto-injection device.
A preliminary deal was announced in February shortly before the start of a scheduled trial, and if approved it would add to $345 million that Pfizer Inc, manufacturer of the EpiPen, agreed to pay last year to resolve related claims against the company.
The same five co-lead firms were awarded $115 million in legal fees, or one-third of the settlement, in the Pfizer settlement. The attorneys are seeking the same percentage in the case that consumers and third-party payors brought against Mylan.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers Rex Sharp and Lynn Sarko on Monday did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mylan and a lawyer for the company, Adam Levin of Hogan Lovells, did not immediately respond to similar requests. Mylan and Pfizer did not admit any wrongdoing as part of their settlements.
Mylan’s move to raise the price of a pair of EpiPen devices to $600 from $100 flooded U.S. courts with lawsuits in 2016. The complaints accused Mylan and Pfizer of engaging in anticompetitive conduct to maintain a market monopoly.
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