On February 3, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a joint statement announcing their plans to collaborate in promoting competitive biological product markets and...more
A new California law, Preserving Access to Affordable Drugs, AB-824 (the Act), which is aimed at curbing reverse-payment patent settlements, took effect on January 1. The Act codifies a presumption that any transfer of value...more
On October 7, 2019, California became the first state to enact legislation—Assembly Bill 824 ("AB 824")—rendering certain pharmaceutical patent litigation settlement agreements presumptively anticompetitive. This alert...more
On 12 December 2018, the General Court (“Court”) partially annulled the European Commission’s decision of 9 July 2014 in the Servier case and consequently reduced Servier’s fine by more than 30%, from €330.99 million to...more
This past year has seen renewed challenges to reverse payment settlement agreements in the pharmaceutical industry. Since the Supreme Court’s Actavis decision in mid-2013, potentially anti-competitive agreements are...more
On 8 September 2016, the General Court of the European Union upheld the European Commission’s decision in which the antitrust regulator imposed fines of approximately EUR 150 million on Lundbeck and a number of generic...more
Patent settlement agreements were traditionally deemed outside the purview of antitrust scrutiny unless the patent holder’s conduct fell outside the legitimate scope of the patent’s exclusionary power. This all changed when...more
On March 30 the US Federal Trade Commission filed suit in federal court alleging that settlements of patent litigation in the pharmaceutical industry in which a pioneer firm agrees not to market an "authorized generic"...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed an antitrust complaint this week against Endo Pharmaceuticals and several generic companies, alleging that these companies entered into anticompetitive “reverse payment” settlements of...more
Recently, the First Circuit became the second federal appellate court interpreting the Supreme Court's landmark decision in FTC v. Actavis, Inc. to hold that non-cash "reverse payments" between pioneer and generic...more
In January, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report on the terms of settlement agreements between branded and generic drug companies in ANDA litigation under the Hatch-Waxman Act, according to the provisions of the...more
Courts continue to evaluate the degree to which “reverse payments” are permitted post-Actavis. In the latest of these decisions, issued on February 22, 2016, the First Circuit held that non-cash payments may run afoul of the...more
Last week I posted on the European Commission’s (EC) latest report into patent settlement agreements between originator and generic companies in the European Union (EU). The EC says each time it produces these reports that...more
Recently, the FTC announced that it reached a settlement in its pay-for-delay lawsuit, FTC v. Cephalon Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, with Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries, Ltd.,...more
Last Thursday the Supreme Court of California decided In re Cipro Cases I & II, No. S198616 (Cal. May 7, 2015), holding that reverse payment, or “pay-for-delay,” settlements can be challenged as unreasonable restraints on...more
As reported previously, the first post-Actavis jury verdict in a “reverse payment” antitrust case handed a win to the defendants. Now, plaintiffs in In re: Nexium (Esomeprazole) Antitrust Litigation have moved for a new...more
In two recent statements, the FTC reaffirmed its intention aggressively to pursue reverse-payment patent settlement agreements in the pharmaceutical industry. ...more
In June 2013, two important decisions regarding 'pay-for-delay' arrangements in the pharmaceuticals industry were made in the EU and US. Generally speaking, 'pay-for-delay' or 'reverse-payment settlements' involve a type of...more
On June 17, 2013, in FTC v. Actavis, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that plaintiffs may bring antitrust suits against so-called “reverse payment” or “pay-for-delay” settlements, under which pioneer and generic...more
For over a decade, the antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission have challenged the type of patent settlement where a brand-name drug manufacturer pays a prospective generic manufacturer to settle patent...more
In Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc., the Supreme Court held that reverse payment (“pay-for-delay”) settlement agreements made in the context of settling Hatch-Waxman ANDA litigation should be evaluated for antitrust...more
This week, the Supreme Court announced that “reverse payment” settlements of patent litigation between branded and generic pharmaceutical companies are, when challenged in a subsequent antitrust case, to be judged under the...more
On June 17, 2013, after years of litigation in the lower courts, the United States Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in FTC v. Actavis. The 5-3 decision, however, did not have a clear winner, and the case was...more
In the most significant patent antitrust decision in decades, Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc., No. 12-416, 2013 WL 2922122 (June 17, 2013), the Supreme Court has held, by a 5-3 vote with Justice Alito recused, that...more
SUMMARY OF DECISION - In FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. ____ (Slip Op. June 17, 2013), the Supreme Court addressed for the first time the underlying antitrust merits of the Federal Trade Commission’s long-running...more