Former Sandoz exec sentenced to probation in price-fixing case

2024-05-16

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Former Sandoz exec sentenced to probation in price-fixing case

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来源: FiercePharma

In 2020, Hector Kellum pleaded guilty to a charge that carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

After admitting to the crime four years ago, a former Sandoz executive will avoid hard time for his part in a generic drug price-fixing scheme.

Hecter Armando Kellum, a former senior executive at Sandoz, pleaded guilty back in 2020 to the charge of conspiracy to restrain trade. The federal charge stemmed from his participation in an anticompetitive price-fixing web for generic drugs from 2013 to 2015.

The charge held a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million, according to the 2020 plea agreement (PDF). In exchange for his guilty plea, Kellum agreed to cooperate with the federal investigation into the generics pricing conspiracy.

Now, four years later, the former Sandoz employee has been sentenced to serve one year of probation and pay a $20,000 fine.

Kellum served as one piece of a massive federal probe that targeted 20 generic drugmakers in what former Connecticut Attorney General William Tong previously called "the largest cartel case in the history of the United States."

In 2019, dozens of state attorneys general sued Teva and 19 other companies, laying out their allegations in a 500-plus page lawsuit.

Kellum was the fourth industry exec to be charged in February of 2020. His named co-conspirator Ara Aprahamian, a former marketing and sales head at Taro Pharma, was charged weeks before Kellum’s plea agreement.

Charges against the Taro exec, who pled not guilty, were dropped (PDF) last year as the case was in the evidence collection and sharing stage. While no specific reasoning for the dismissal was disclosed, U.S. prosecutors said it “will allow the conservation of this Court’s time and resources.”

Novartis, for its part, fessed up a month after Kellum took his plea deal. The Swiss drugmaker's former generics group, Sandoz Sandoz, now operates independently after a spinoff.

In March 2020, Novartis agreed to cooperate in the larger investigation and shell out $195 million as part of its settlement.

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