F&F Obtains Significant Victory On Behalf Of Investors In Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

On March 25, 2022, Judge Karen S. Marston of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied, in part, a motion filed by Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. (“Teva”) and certain of its officers and directors to dismiss the amended complaint filed by Lead Plaintiff in Halman Aldubi Provident and Pension Funds Ltd., v. Teva Pharms. Industries Ltd., et al., No. 20-4660-KSM (E.D. Pa.).  Lead Plaintiff, represented by Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP as sole Lead Counsel, alleges that defendants made false and/or misleading statements about, inter alia, Teva’s multiple sclerosis drug, Copaxone, by attributing the drug’s success to legitimate business factors such as physician and patient demand.  In reality, Lead Plaintiff alleges, Copaxone’s success arose from Teva’s scheme with a specialty pharmacy to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars through two charities to pay Copaxone patients’ Medicare co-pay obligations, allowing Teva to raise Copaxone’s price to over 19 times the rate of inflation, which scheme the defendants failed to disclose to the market.  When the full extent of defendants’ misrepresentations were exposed by the August 2020 filing of the U.S. Department of Justice’s complaint against Teva, which alleged that the undisclosed scheme violated the federal anti-kickback statute and the False Claims Act, Teva’s stock plummeted, causing shareholders to lose millions. Judge Marston held that “Because Teva put the sources of Copaxone’s success into play, its failure to reveal the true reason for Copaxone’s success rendered these statements misleading.”
 
A copy of the Order on the motion to dismiss can be found here.