GlaxoSmithKline Faces Antitrust Suit

GlaxoSmithKline is accused in a lawsuit of using threats to block generic competition to its $2-billion-a-year antibiotic Augmentin after a U.S. judge eliminated the drug’s patent protection.

An Alabama union health plan claims in a suit that Glaxo filed improper patent applications to ward off generic competition through 2018 and then threatened rivals May 23 after the last of a series of federal court rulings invalidating the patents.

Executives with the British drug maker said that if they are successful in appealing U.S. District Judge Henry Morgan’s invalidity rulings, they would seek damages for lost profit against any seller of rival versions of the drug.

GlaxoSmithKline did not have an immediate comment on the lawsuit, filed in Norfolk, Va.