Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker announced today a nationwide settlement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company over claims related to its anti-cancer drug Taxol®. The settlement resulted in checks being issued today to 297 Georgia consumers, totaling $178,878.00, who submitted claims for purchases of the anti-cancer drug Taxol® or its generic form paclitaxel.

The settlement was recovered in an antitrust case in federal District Court for the District of Columbia in which Attorney General Baker joined the attorneys general of the other 49 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories as counsel for a class of individual consumers who paid for Taxol® and its generic equivalent paclitaxel. The lawsuit asserted that, because of invalid patents claimed by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company for its anti-cancer drug Taxol®, lower cost generic substitutes were delayed in arriving on the market resulting in higher prices to those who paid for the drug. In November 2003 the Court approved a settlement negotiated by the Attorneys General on behalf of consumers in all the states and territories.

As a result of that settlement individuals who paid all or part of the cost for treatments with Taxol® or paclitaxel, during the period from January 1, 1999 through February 28, 2003, and who submitted valid claims during the court-established claims period ending February 29, 2004, will receive reimbursement of at least $525. Consumers who paid the entire cost for two or more treatments will be paid $438 for each such treatment.