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Johnson & Johnson is ending a minimum-price policy for contact lenses that is at the center of a legal battle over a Utah law passed amid increasingly bitter price wars in the $4 billion industry.
The policies that are also used by other major contact-lens makers are designed to protect eye doctors from being undercut by discount sellers like Utah-based 1-800 Contacts. Johnson & Johnson will move to a rewards program instead.
The Wednesday announcement comes as the company pushes back against new efforts to deregulate the industry.
It is unclear how the change might affect the court fight over a Utah law that bans minimum-price programs used by the major contact lens makers, a practice that opponents call price fixing.
The courts have so far upheld the law and 1-800 Contacts has dropped its prices on several products.