v. ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was pending trial in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. Under the terms of the agreement, ANI paid Arbor $8.4 million and Arbor dismissed the action with prejudice. Neither party admitted wrongdoing in reaching this settlement. The Company paid the settlement from cash on the balance sheet
On December 3, 2020, class action complaints were filed against the Company on behalf of putative classes of direct and indirect purchasers of the drug Bystolic. On December 23, 2020, six individual purchasers of Bystolic, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreen, Kroger, Albertsons, and H-E-B, filed complaints against the Company. On March 15, 2021, the plaintiffs in these actions filed amended complaints. All amended complaints are substantively identical. The plaintiffs in these actions allege that, beginning in 2012, Forest Laboratories, the manufacturer of Bystolic, entered into anticompetitive agreements when settling patent litigation related to Bystolic with seven potential manufacturers of a generic version of Bystolic: Hetero, Torrent, Alkem/Indchemie, Glenmark, Amerigen, Watson, and various of their corporate parents, successors, subsidiaries, and affiliates. ANI itself was not a party to patent litigation with Forest concerning Bystolic and did not settle patent litigation with Forest. The plaintiffs named the Company as a defendant based on the Company’s January 8, 2020 Asset Purchase Agreement with Amerigen. The complaints alleged that the 2013 patent litigation settlement agreement between Forest and Amerigen violated federal and state antitrust laws and state consumer protection laws by delaying the market entry of generic versions of Bystolic. Plaintiffs alleged they paid higher prices as a result of delayed generic competition. Plaintiffs sought damages, trebled or otherwise multiplied under applicable law, injunctive relief, litigation costs and attorneys’ fees. The complaints did not specify the amount of damages sought from the Company or other defendants and the Company at this early stage of the litigation cannot reasonably estimate the potential damages that the plaintiffs will seek. The cases have been consolidated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York as In re Bystolic Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 20-cv-005735 (LJL). On April 23, 2021, the Company and other defendants filed motions to dismiss the amended complaints. On January 24, 2022, the court dismissed all claims brought by the plaintiffs without prejudice. The court granted the plaintiffs until February 22, 2022 to file amended complaints, which were filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, on that date. The newly amended complaints contain substantially similar claims. On April 19, 2022, the Company and other defendants filed motions to dismiss the newly amended complaints. On May 23, 2022, the plaintiffs filed oppositions to the motions to dismiss and, on June 24, 2022, the Company and other defendants filed replies to those oppositions. The motions to dismiss are now fully briefed and pending with the court. The Company disputes any liability in these matters.
On March 24, 2021, Azurity Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Azurity”) filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota against ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc., asserting that ANI’s vancomycin hydrochloride oral solution drug product infringes U.S. Patent No. 10,688,046. The complaint sought injunctive relief, damages, including lost profits and/or royalty, treble damages, and attorneys’ fee and costs. On February 15, 2022, the Company entered into a settlement agreement with Azurity to resolve all claims related to this action. Under the terms of the agreement, Azurity granted ANI a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, royalty-bearing license under its Patents to sell ANI product in the United States and dismissed the action with prejudice. In exchange, we paid Azurity $1.9 million of royalties from past sales and we will pay Azurity a royalty equal to 20% of gross margin of sales of the ANI product for a contractually defined term. We paid the settlement from cash on hand and the $1.9 million charge was recorded as cost of sales (excluding depreciation and amortization) on the consolidated statement of operations for the year ended December 31, 2021.
On April 1, 2021, United Therapeutics Corp. and Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“UTC/Supernus”) filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware against ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc., asserting that ANI’s proposed Treprostinil extended release drug product, which is subject to ANI’s Abbreviated New Drug Application No. 215667, infringes U.S. Patent Nos. 7,417,070, 7,544,713, 8,252,839, 8,349,892, 8,410,169, 8,747,897, 9,050,311, 9,278,901, 9,393,203, 9,422,223, 9,593,066 and 9,604,901 (“the Asserted Patents”). The complaint seeks injunctive relief, attorneys' fee and costs. ANI filed its answer and counterclaims on May 28, 2021, denying UTC/Supernus’ allegations and seeking declaratory judgment that ANI has not infringed any valid and enforceable claim of the Asserted Patents, that the Asserted Patents are invalid, and an award of attorneys’ fees and costs. On May 26, 2022, the parties’ respective claims and counterclaims were dismissed pursuant to a confidential settlement agreement.