By Jessica Dye
NEW YORK |
Wed Dec 5, 2012 8:02pm EST
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Cardinal Health Inc and Owens Minor Inc were strike with a $200 million antitrust lawsuit Wednesday by a specialty medical supply distributor that indicted a dual U.S. companies of conspiring to wring divided business and keep it from expanding a marketplace share.
The lawsuit was filed in Kansas sovereign justice by Suture Express Inc, a specialty medical supply distributor that sells suture and endomechanical products to medical providers. In a lawsuit, Suture Express purported that Cardinal and Owens Minor exploited their prevalence in a medical supply placement marketplace to retaliate medical providers who buy certain products from Suture Express.
Cardinal and Owens Minor are both broad-based medical and surgical supply distributors that lift a far-reaching operation of products, in further to suture and endomechanical products. The lawsuit purported that Cardinal and Owens any threatened their business with a restricted surcharge of as most as 5 percent on a rest of their products, if a business did not also squeeze their suture and endomechanical reserve from Cardinal or Owens Minor.
“This rapacious pricing enhances defendants’ marketplace power, raises barriers to entrance and impedes a ability of Suture Express to compete,” a censure said. Although Cardinal and Owens Minor contest in a same market, they “present a joined front opposite strident caring providers’ traffic with Suture Express,” a censure said.
In doing so, medical providers have no choice though to squeeze those products from Cardinal or Owens Minor, lifting their costs and undermining Suture Express’ patron base, a lawsuit said.
The lawsuit is seeking $200 million from Cardinal and Owens Minor. Neither association could be immediately reached for criticism after unchanging business hours Wednesday.
Suture Express’ arch executive, Brian Forsythe, pronounced a idea of a lawsuit was to “provide a turn personification margin so that medical providers don’t face a chastisement for selecting distributors like Suture Express.”
Cardinal and Owens Minor together control some-more than two-thirds of a $22 billion strident caring medical-surgical placement marketplace in a United States, according to a complaint. Suture and endomechanical products together make adult approximately 10 percent of all medical and surgical reserve distributed in a United States to hospitals and other strident caring providers, a censure said.
The box is Suture Express Inc v. Cardinal Health Inc and Owens Minor Inc, in a U.S. District Court for a District of Kansas. Case series not immediately available.
(Reporting by Jessica Dye; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Source: Health Medicine Network