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# Lawmakers Urge Justice Dept. to Go After Generic Firms
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/lawmakers-urge-justice-dept-to-go-after-generic-firms/
- Published: 2019-06-17T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T01:33:07.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5144347

Sen. **Bernie Sanders** (I-VT) and Rep. **Elijah E. Cummings** (D-MD) are urging the Justice Department to investigate 20 generic drug manufacturers for allegedly engaging in a price-fixing scheme. “It is sick and disgraceful that generic pharmaceutical executives, who should be making medicines affordable for the American people, were instead busy coordinating a cover-up scheme to hide the truth about their price-fixing conspiracy when we asked about their skyrocketing prices,” Sanders said in a[ release](https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/sen-sanders-and-rep-cummings-call-on-justice-department-to-investigate-generic?ref=fdaweb.com). “I am deeply troubled by the allegations that Teva and its peers conspired to inflate the prices of lifesaving generic drugs, and that they obstructed our investigation in the process,” Cummings added.

In a letter to Justice, the lawmakers note that a coalition of 44 state attorneys general have filed suit ([see story](https://www.fdaweb.com/44-state-lawsuit-against-price-fixing-generic-firms/)) against 20 generic drug manufacturers and more than a dozen executives, which followed a 2014 investigation into 14 generic drug companies’ suspicious price increases by Sanders and Cummings. The state attorneys general have uncovered evidence that these companies coordinated with each other to obstruct the 2014 investigation, they wrote. “Executives deleted text messages, coordinated their responses, and lied to our offices in order to conceal a massive conspiracy to fix prices for generic drugs, raising them by as much as 1,000 percent,” they contend. 

Additionally, Sanders and Cummings criticized Justice’s recent agreement ([see story](https://www.fdaweb.com/heritage-pharma-charged-in-price-fixing-scheme/)) with Heritage Pharmaceuticals that allows the company to pay $225,000 to resolve its corporate criminal liability in an ongoing price fixing investigation. They say that the penalty amount is insufficient to deter criminal conduct by the firm and other generic drug makers.