The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies accused of violating antitrust laws by using reverse payments to delay entry of a generic version of a...more
On June 30, 2023, a jury in the Northern District of California found Gilead and Teva not liable in a trial accusing the companies of engaging in an illegal reverse payment to delay generic versions of two HIV drugs, Truvada...more
In March 2021, our experienced intellectual property, antitrust, and health care litigation lawyers shared some predictions on antitrust policy and enforcement in the health care sector. In “Health Care Antitrust under...more
On 4 March 2021, the European Commission (Commission) opened a formal investigation into alleged anti-competitive conduct by the pharmaceutical company Teva. The Commission suspects Teva of having deployed a strategy with the...more
On 25 March 2021 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) dismissed all the appeals brought by Danish pharmaceutical company H. Lundbeck A/S (Lundbeck) and five generic manufacturers against the judgments of the General Court of...more
In recent years, there have been various antitrust investigations in the pharmaceutical sector resulting in decisions of the European Commission (EC) and the European Courts. In two recent rulings – “Lundbeck and...more
On 26 November 2020, the European Commission (Commission) issued a decision fining pharmaceutical companies Teva and Cephalon EUR60.5 million for infringing Article 101 TFEU by agreeing to delay the entry of a cheaper generic...more
ANDA litigation, pursuant to the Hatch-Waxman Act, has become more complicated over the years since enactment of the statute in 1984, with more patents being asserted and more parties participating over the opportunity to...more
On 30 January 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its decision on a request for preliminary ruling submitted by the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in a case concerning the long-standing...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
In the European Union, Big Pharma has been operating with a target on its back for the best part of the last decade. Following its 2008 sector inquiry into the pharmaceutical sector, the Commission vowed to clamp down on...more
On November 21, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld a 2014 jury verdict for AstraZeneca (AZ) and Ranbaxy regarding a 2012 payment of $700 million from AstraZeneca for Ranbaxy to abandon its challenge...more
The Third Circuit recently vacated class certification, granted by the Eastern District of Pennsylvania after nearly a decade of litigation, in an antitrust case alleging that a pharmaceutical company entered into agreements...more
On August 8, the District of Connecticut issued a noteworthy ruling on how to approach defining the relevant market definition in a pay-for-delay suit. In In re Aggrenox Antitrust Litigation, 3:14-md-02516 (D. Conn.), three...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
A recent complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) indicates that the agency is continuing its aggressive pursuit of agreements between drug manufacturers that delay the entry of generic pharmaceuticals into 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
On the 12th of February 2016, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) fined GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the successor companies to Alpharma Limited around £45m in total for breaches of Chapter I of the Competition Act...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
On May 28, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced it had reached a $1.2 billion settlement with Teva Pharmaceuticals, which acquired Cephalon in 2012, over reverse payment for its narcolepsy drug, Provigil. The...more
A sweeping new opinion from the California Supreme Court revives California Cartwright Act challenges to pay-for-delay pharmaceutical patent settlements. In re Cipro Cases I & II, (Case No. S198616, Slip Op. May 7, 2015). A...more
Nearly two years ago the Supreme Court issued its opinion in FTC v. Actavis, 133 S. Ct. 2223 (2013), holding that a reverse payment made by a brand manufacturer to a generic manufacturer to resolve pending patent litigation...more
In In Re Cipro Cases I & II, the California Supreme Court laid out a four-part rule of reason analysis for evaluating ANDA settlements that involve a reverse payment to the generic challenger (also referred to as “pay for...more