Attorney General Ellison announces $400 million settlement with Sandoz over conspiracy to inflate drug prices and limit competition
Minnesota will receive over $2 million from the latest in a series of settlements with generic drug manufacturers for illegal price manipulation scheme
August 4, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison today joined a coalition of 43 states and territories announcing a $400 million settlement in principle with Sandoz Inc. to resolve allegations that the generic drug manufacturer engaged in widespread, long-running conspiracies to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unreasonably restrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs. If approved, Sandoz Inc. will pay a total of approximately $469 million to settle the claims brought by state enforcers, including amounts paid pursuant to previous settlements with other states. Minnesota will receive over $2 million as its share of the settlement.
The settlement will also resolve allegations that Sandoz Inc.’s past and present international affiliates, Novartis AG, Sandoz AG, and Sandoz Group AG, participated in the alleged anticompetitive conduct and fraudulently transferred assets in order to avoid liability. As part of the settlement in principle, Sandoz has agreed to meaningful injunctive terms including a series of internal reforms to ensure fair competition and compliance with antitrust laws. This settlement is contingent upon obtaining signatures from all necessary states and territories and comes as the States prepare for an anticipated trial in 2027.
The settlement comes in a series of antitrust cases led by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong against what has been called has been called “most likely the largest cartel in the history of the United States.” The settlement with Sandoz follows prior settlements with generic-drug manufacturers Lannett, Bausch, Apotex, Heritage, and Glenmark. All together, the national value of those settlements is more than $566 million, with Attorney General Ellison having recovered more than $2.5 million for Minnesota.
“Generic drugs exist to help people better afford the medicines they rely on. When companies like Sandoz conspire to keep costs high, they compromise Minnesotans’ health just to benefit their bottom line,” said Attorney General Ellison. “Illegal corporate behavior is a key reason behind the rising cost of living in Minnesota, and our office will keep fighting to stop it—in the pharmaceutical sector and across our economy.”
Minnesota’s three lawsuits against generics manufacturers for conspiracy to control prices, reduce competition, and restrain trade
The first complaint, which Minnesota and the coalition filed in 2016, includes Heritage and 17 other corporate defendants, two individual defendants, and 15 generic drugs. Two former executives from Heritage Pharmaceuticals, Jeffery Glazer and Jason Malek, have since entered into settlement agreements and are cooperating.
Minnesota and the coalition filed the second complaint in 2019 against Teva Pharmaceuticals and 21 of the nation’s largest generic drug manufacturers. The complaint names 16 individual senior executive defendants.
The third complaint, filed in 2020, focuses on 80 topical generic drugs that account for billions of dollars of sales in the United States and names 26 corporate defendants and 10 individual defendants. Seven additional pharmaceutical executives have been cooperating to support the States’ claims.
This lawsuit will be the first one to be tried in court, likely in late 2026 in Connecticut.
The cases all stem from a series of investigations built on evidence from several cooperating witnesses at the core of the different conspiracies, a massive document database of over 20 million documents, and a phone records database containing millions of call detail records and contact information for over 600 sales and pricing individuals in the generics industry. Each complaint addresses a different set of drugs and defendants and lays out an interconnected web of competing industry executives that met with each other during industry dinners, "girls nights out," lunches, cocktail parties, golf outings and communicated via frequent telephone calls, emails and text messages that sowed the seeds for their illegal agreements. Throughout the complaints, defendants use terms like "fair share," "playing nice in the sandbox," and "responsible competitor" to describe how they unlawfully discouraged competition, raised prices and enforced an ingrained culture of collusion.
Among the records the states obtained is a two-volume notebook containing the contemporaneous notes of one of the states’ cooperators that memorialized his discussions during phone calls with competitors and internal company meetings over a period of several years.
Attorney General Ellison is joined in securing this settlement in principle by the attorneys general of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
