Profile: Zenith Goldline Pharmaceuticals

Abbott Laboratories, maker of the drug Hytrin, agrees to pay rival drug company Zenith Goldline Pharmaceuticals up to $42 million not to produce a generic version of Hytrin, a drug for high blood pressure and prostate enlargement. For three years Abbott, whose patent on Hytrin expired in 1995, has been fighting Zenith in court to prevent it from marketing a cheaper generic. Abbott currently earns about $500 million a year on the drug. After signing its agreement with Zenith, Abbott inks a similar deal with another rival, Geneva Pharmaceuticals, agreeing to pay that company as much as $101 million to keep its generic version of Hytrin off the market. Geneva and Abbott will abandon their agreement a year later when the federal government launches an antitrust investigation. Consumers will sue Abbott and Geneva charging that the companies’ agreement cost patients hundreds of millions dollars. [New York Times, 7/23/2000]