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Tru-Form Optics class action law suit against Valeant Pharmaceuticals

Hi Everyone: As a result of the virtual monopoly on orthokeratology lenses, in conjunction with significantly increasing button prices to the laboratories, Tru-Form Optics filed a class action lawsuit against Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

As you know in recent months Valeant (i.e., Bausch + Lomb and Paragon Vision Sciences) dropped out of the Contact Lens Manufacturers Association and then contacted the laboratories to indicate that their distribution of the Paragon CRT lens - a very large source of revenue for Tru-Form and several other prominent CLMA member laboratories - would be discontinued at the end of 2015.

That has since potentially been changed as the Federal Trade Commission is looking into the Valeant situation and it has been reported that Paragon is for sale.

Likewise, several laboratories have been contacted about the possibility of extending the distribution agreement into 2016. That said, it has been very unsettling and the laboratories have often been recommending GP materials - whenever possible - manufactured from CLMA material manufacturers (i.e., Contamac, Menicon, InnoVision, Lagado, and The Lifestyle Company).
 
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Ed Bennett said:
Hi Everyone: As a result of the virtual monopoly on orthokeratology lenses, in conjunction with significantly increasing button prices to the laboratories, Tru-Form Optics filed a class action lawsuit against Valeant Pharmaceuticals. As you know in recent months Valeant (i.e., Bausch + Lomb and Paragon Vision Sciences) dropped out of the Contact Lens Manufacturers Association and then contacted the laboratories to indicate that their distribution of the Paragon CRT lens - a very large source of revenue for Tru-Form and several other prominent CLMA member laboratories - would be discontinued at the end of 2015. That has since potentially been changed as the Federal Trade Commission is looking into the Valeant situation and it has been reported that Valeant is for sale. Likewise, several laboratories have been contacted about the possibility of extending the distribution agreement into 2016. That said, it has been very unsettling and the laboratories have often been recommending GP materials - whenever possible - manufactured from CLMA material manufacturers (i.e., Contamac, Menicon, InnoVision, Lagado, and The Lifestyle Company).
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ed -- can you give us more details on the suit? I'm contacting TruForm this morning, but I'd like to know more

thanks
adam
 
AdminWolf said:
ed -- can you give us more details on the suit? I'm contacting TruForm this morning, but I'd like to know more

thanks
adam
Click to expand...

interestingly, it hasn't hit any of the newswires yet, outside of law360, so details on the ground are thin... hopefully i can get more for folks today.

ad
 
Greg Gemoules said:
Truform may not be able to comment if they are a party to litigation.
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Perhaps Ed can give us a little more insight into the details, as I think the business press is all but shut down for Xmas :)
 
Ed Bennett said:
Hi Everyone: As a result of the virtual monopoly on orthokeratology lenses, in conjunction with significantly increasing button prices to the laboratories, Tru-Form Optics filed a class action lawsuit against Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

As you know in recent months Valeant (i.e., Bausch + Lomb and Paragon Vision Sciences) dropped out of the Contact Lens Manufacturers Association and then contacted the laboratories to indicate that their distribution of the Paragon CRT lens - a very large source of revenue for Tru-Form and several other prominent CLMA member laboratories - would be discontinued at the end of 2015.

That has since potentially been changed as the Federal Trade Commission is looking into the Valeant situation and it has been reported that Paragon is for sale.

Likewise, several laboratories have been contacted about the possibility of extending the distribution agreement into 2016. That said, it has been very unsettling and the laboratories have often been recommending GP materials - whenever possible - manufactured from CLMA material manufacturers (i.e., Contamac, Menicon, InnoVision, Lagado, and The Lifestyle Company).
Click to expand...

Truform, Truform, rah, rah rah, stick it to Valeant sis boom bah!
 
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Ed Bennett said:
Hi Everyone: As a result of the virtual monopoly on orthokeratology lenses, in conjunction with significantly increasing button prices to the laboratories, Tru-Form Optics filed a class action lawsuit against Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

As you know in recent months Valeant (i.e., Bausch + Lomb and Paragon Vision Sciences) dropped out of the Contact Lens Manufacturers Association and then contacted the laboratories to indicate that their distribution of the Paragon CRT lens - a very large source of revenue for Tru-Form and several other prominent CLMA member laboratories - would be discontinued at the end of 2015.

That has since potentially been changed as the Federal Trade Commission is looking into the Valeant situation and it has been reported that Paragon is for sale.

Likewise, several laboratories have been contacted about the possibility of extending the distribution agreement into 2016. That said, it has been very unsettling and the laboratories have often been recommending GP materials - whenever possible - manufactured from CLMA material manufacturers (i.e., Contamac, Menicon, InnoVision, Lagado, and The Lifestyle Company).
Click to expand...



Has Contex responded to this? I always used Boston2,4,Es and XO material when doing orthokeratology with Bronstein Labratory and later with Contex and Nick Soyan. Both labs were terrific on quality and exact reproducible specs ,in my clinical experience. Do you feel this opens a door for an independant lab to use a different blank material(more affordable and stiff(no whipping or flexure) and their own ortho-k design?
 
We asked Jan Svochak of TruForm Optics for a quote:

"Valeant's conduct should be of concern to eyecare professionals everywhere, since patients benefit from robust and competitive markets for gas permeable lenses."

I suspect that's all he'll be saying, as he is a party to the lawsuit. We've reached out to the legal firm that they are working with in order to get more details on the action, but I doubt we'll hear anything until after Xmas

thanks
ad
 
AdminWolf said:
I doubt we'll hear anything until after Xmas
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Hospitalization of national and company presidents in trouble is a classic feint, particularly on major holidays.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/26/business/valeant-chief-is-hospitalized-with-pneumonia.html

Pollack, A. Valeant chief is hospitalized with pneumonia. New York Times, 25 December 2015, Friday, 2:06 pm ET.

J. Michael Pearson, the embattled chief executive of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, has been admitted to the hospital for severe pneumonia, a spokeswoman for the company confirmed on Friday.

The spokeswoman, Laurie W. Little, declined to provide further details. She said that out of respect for the privacy of Mr. Pearson and his family, the company would update his condition only as appropriate.

“We wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to him returning to work when he is feeling better,” Ms. Little said in an email.

Mr. Pearson, 56, has been struggling to reassure investors about the future of Valeant. The company’s stock has lost more than half its value since August, as Valeant faces concerns about its pricing and distribution policies for its drugs.

A lengthy incapacitation would probably be considered negatively by investors. Mr. Pearson is the architect of the company’s business model and has been strongly associated with the company’s success.

Some skeptics have wondered whether it was time for a management change given the company’s recent problems. But Mr. Pearson appears to have the support of the board.

A former consultant at McKinsey & Company, Mr. Pearson became Valeant’s chief executive in 2008 and oversaw a period of rapid growth and a meteoric rise in the company’s stock price.

Mr. Pearson largely shunned research aimed at discovering and developing new drugs, which he viewed as too risky. Instead, Valeant grew by acquiring other drug companies, keeping their products and dismissing most of their workers.

But the shares have been plummeting in the last three months over its business model.

Valeant’s strategy of acquiring old drugs and sharply raising their prices, often by several hundred percent, has attracted attention from Congress. It also attracted scrutiny for its secret relationship with Philidor Rx Services, a mail-order pharmacy that dispensed some of Valeant’s expensive dermatology drugs and took care of getting them reimbursed by insurance companies.

Valeant severed its ties to Philidor in October, after questions were raised about the pharmacy’s practices. Valeant recently signed a new distribution deal with Walgreens.

Federal prosecutors are looking into Valeant’s pricing, distribution and financial assistance programs for patients, according to the company’s regulatory filings. A committee of Valeant’s directors is investigating the relationship with Philidor.

Mr. Pearson has said that in the future, Valeant will not rely so much on huge price increases on old drugs. And he has said for the next year at least, the company will use its cash to pay down some of the more than $30 billion in debt it has accumulated from its numerous acquisitions. That means it is likely to do far fewer deals.

Valeant shares closed Thursday at $114.11. They have recovered from a 52-week low of just under $70 in November. But that is still well below a peak of above $260 in early August.
 
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Greg Gemoules said:
Now Truform Optics joins the fray:

http://www.law360.com/articles/741615/valeant-faces-contact-lens-antitrust-class-action
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AdminWolf said:
ed -- can you give us more details on the suit? I'm contacting TruForm this morning, but I'd like to know more

thanks
adam
Click to expand...
Thank you Adam.

As Greg Gemoules reported with the article link from law360 in New York, Tru-Form Optics has initiated a class action law suit against Valeant Pharmaceuticals based in large part on the potential for an extremely large loss in income due to Valeant's acquisition of its sole competitor (i.e., Paragon Vision Sciences) in the market for specialty contact lenses (specifically orthokeratology lenses) and using it's monopoly to inflate prices.

It is believed by Tru-Form that if this is left unchecked it "will result in no competition in the overall market for Orthok lenses, leaving patients paying higher prices for fewer options". The complaint also indicates that since the acquisition, the costs of Orthok buttons have increased between 61 percent and 143 percent in the United States and between 44 to 200 percent in other countries.

Valeant is attempting to purchase several finishing laboratories which Tru-Form says is in an effort via which "Valeant plans to force the remaining labs out of the market, allowing it to further drive up prices." This appears to be consistent with other shareholder class action suits that have been highly publicized recently in which it is claimed that Valeant "fraudulently inflated its stock price" via the formation if specialty pharmacies to greatly increase the prices of its drugs.
 
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