In the ten years since the Supreme Court ruled in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis that reverse payment settlements—or settlements where a patent holder pays an accused patent infringer cash or other consideration to end...more
I. Introduction - No pharmaceutical antitrust decision has had more impact than the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, a decision which officially defined the term “reverse payment...more
Hosted by ACI, 18th Annual Paragraph IV Disputes Conference returns to New York City for another exciting year with curated programming that not only addresses the hot topics, but also puts them within the context of pre-suit...more
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the US House of Representatives’ Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee recently voted three bills out of committee that target the pharmaceutical industry practices of so-called “reverse...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) spent the better part of a decade attacking the practice of innovator drug companies settling ANDA litigation by providing payments to generic applicants challenging the validity of Orange...more
On December 3, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published its annual report on pharmaceutical patent settlements filed with the FTC under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003...more
On April 22, 2020, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded an order certifying a class of direct purchaser plaintiffs in In re: Lamictal Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation, holding that the district court...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
Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court found in FTC v. Actavis, 570 U.S. 136 (2013), that large and unjustified payments from a brand pharmaceutical manufacturer to prevent generic entry can provide a basis for an antitrust...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
The Third Circuit recently affirmed the grant of summary judgment to GlaxoSmithKline (“GSK”) in the nearly 10-year-old Wellbutrin XL Antitrust Litigation, which challenged the lawfulness of settlement agreements resolving...more
One of the least disputed elements of class certification is Rule 23(a)(1) numerosity, and so there is relatively little analysis from the courts about it. Last month, however, a divided panel of the Third Circuit provided a...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
The FTC has recently weighed in again on the evolving interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2013 opinion in FTC v. Actavis, 133 S. Ct. 2223 (2013). The agency submitted an amicus brief to the Third Circuit in the appeal 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
Federal Circuit Interprets Statutory Requirements for Biosimilar Regulatory Pathway - Amgen Inc., v. Sandoz Inc., (Fed. Cir. July 21, 2015): In a case of first impression, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal...more
Drug company Turing Pharmaceuticals made headlines recently when it reportedly raised the price of Daraprim, used commonly by AIDS patients to fight life-threatening infections, from $13.50 to $750 per tablet. Amidst...more