'No generics' deals blocked pet owners from cheaper flea-and-tick treatment, lawsuit claims

et owners paying for Advantage II and K9 Advantix II topical flea-and-tick treatments could have saved hundreds of dollars by now had they switched to the generic versions that first hit the market six years ago.

But first, they would have had to find them.

Cheaper equivalents for the blockbuster brands, which both kill and repel pests, have quietly eluded consumers for years. Even today, they’re nowhere to be found at many of the biggest pet specialty stores, like PetSmart or Petco. And they’re absent from popular online pet pharmacies like Chewy.com or PetMed Express.


Their elusiveness is not by accident, according to a federal lawsuit by one of the generic’s makers, but a scheme by the brand-name products’ company to block competition.

Filed in the U.S. District Court in Northern California, the lawsuit by Tevra Brands offers a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of the multibillion-dollar pet medication market, where a few major companies have a stranglehold on pricing. Tevra’s suit claims it lost tens of millions of dollars because Bayer Animal Health, a former subsidiary of the German pharmaceutical giant, conspired to maintain its monopoly over the treatment it created.

Tevra sells its generic topical treatments for cats and dogs on its website, on Amazon and elsewhere, but the company argues that Bayer prevented it from reaching pet owners where they’re most likely to shop and depriving them of a better deal.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/05/18/k9-advantix-flea-tick-medicine-generic-bayer-tevra/70220325007/