Ex-Bristol-Myers Squibb exec indicted in antitrust probe

A former executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb was charged Wednesday with lying to federal authorities about a patent deal involving the blood-thinning drug Plavix.

The drugmaker has already pleaded guilty and paid a $1 million fine for misleading the government about the Plavix deal. Now antitrust prosecutors are charging the company's former senior vice president, Andrew Bodnar, with one count of making a false statement, the Department of Justice said.

The indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., says Bodnar lied to the Federal Trade Commission about a deal between Bristol-Myers Squibb and partner Sanofi-Aventis to keep a rival firm from launching of a generic version of Plavix. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Bristol-Myers and Sanofi had agreed in 2006 to pay Canadian drugmaker Apotex at least $40 million to keep its version of Plavix off the market until 2011, when the patent expires. The agreement was designed to settle Apotex's challenge to the patents on Plavix, but the deal soured when state attorneys general refused to sign off.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that Bodnar knowingly made false statements about Bristol's proposed settlement with Apotex to FTC agents. At the time, Bristol was subject to a binding agreement, for unrelated conduct, which required it to submit any proposed patent settlements to FTC for review.

Plavix was the second best-selling drug in the world last year with revenue of $7.3 billion, according to health care research firm IMS Health.

A spokeswoman for New York-based Bristol declined to comment.

Drugmakers often use lucrative settlement payments to keep rivals from launching low-cost generic versions of their drugs. But, the government has started challenging the practice as illegal and anticompetitive.

In February, federal regulators sued Frazer, Penn.-based drug firm Cephalon for paying generic firms $200 million to delay launching cheaper versions of its sleep disorder drug Provigil.

Cephalon defended the agreements, saying they helped end costly and protracted patent infringement litigation.

Shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. rose 11 cents Wednesday to close at $21.43.