BMS - Plavix: $125 million settlement

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. won a judge’s final approval of a $125 million settlement of a shareholder lawsuit claiming the drugmaker hid information about its effort to settle a patent lawsuit with Apotex Inc.

The case against New York-based Bristol-Myers, filed in 2007, settled in principle in May. U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan yesterday granted final approval of the deal. He previously had given his preliminary approval.

According to the complaint, Bristol-Myers entered into a settlement in 2006 that allowed Apotex, based in Weston, Ontario, to make a generic version of Plavix.

The investors claimed Bristol-Myers didn’t disclose that, as part of the settlement of the patent case, it agreed to relinquish certain legal rights and had entered a “secret” oral side agreement with Apotex.

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