At least four law firms across the country are asking Alexion Pharmaceuticals shareholders to participate in the class-action lawsuit brought mid-November against Alexion, alleging that the company misled shareholders on its value.
The sole named plaintiff, Victoriano Juarez, alleges he purchased seven Alexion shares for $177 each in December 2014, according to a statement from Alexion. The case, which was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York on Nov. 17, claims that Alexion provided false information about the company’s value to the public, according to statements from the law firms that announced the suit. Actual sales practices of the company’s trademark drug Soliris were different from what was known to investors, the statements claim.
The company will challenge the claims, wrote Stephanie Fagan, Alexion senior vice president of corporate communications, in a statement to the News.
“Alexion and each of the named individual defendants dispute the allegations and will vigorously defend itself,” she wrote.
The firms known to be asking for clients are Goldberg Law and Lundin Law in Los Angeles, Rosen Law in New York City and Robbins Arroyo LLP in San Diego. The named defendants include Alexion founder Leonard Bell MED ’84, CEO David Hallal and Chief Financial Officer Vikas Sinha.
In a Nov. 21 newsletter it issued through Business Wire, Goldberg Law said Alexion had cancelled its appearance at a health care conference in early November and announced it would be unable to file a third-quarter report in a timely manner. When Alexion announced those developments, share prices dropped, the law firm said.
If the company is found guilty, then Alexion must have been selling shares at higher prices than investors would have otherwise paid, according to Jonathan Macey LAW ’82, a corporate law professor at Yale Law School. Through these lawsuits investors attempt to recover the excess they paid for shares, among other damages, Macey said. He added that the vast majority of similar lawsuits are settled outside of court.
Alexion relocated its headquarters from Cheshire to New Haven in 2015.