Attorneys General of 45 states and the District of Columbia amended a lawsuit [text, PDF] on Tuesday to accuse more generic drug companies of acting in a price-fixing conspiracy.

The lawsuit now accuses 18 companies and subsidiaries and two executives of engaging in price-fixing tactics for drugs such as generic antibiotics and drugs used to treat epilepsy, high blood pressure and asthma.

The lawsuit alleges [press release] that the companies and executives divided customers among themselves, percentage-wise, and occasionally agreed on when to increase prices. The two executives, Rajiv Malik and Satish Mehta, are alleged to have directly colluded with one another on their companies’ shares of the market for the release of common antibiotic, doxycycline hyclate.

According to the suit, the agreement among the companies has resulted in prices for generic drugs to inflate, thereby increasing costs to government healthcare and private insurance companies. The AGs allege [press release] that the price-fixing “schemes are part of a broader, overarching agreement among generic manufacturers to avoid competing on prices and for market share.”

The suit was originally filed [JURIST report] in December.

A criminal investigation [text, PDF] by the Department of Justice is currently being conducting into some of the allegations against the drug companies.