The European Commission (EC) has fined five pharmaceutical companies a total of EUR13.4 million for participating in a cartel concerning N-Butylbromide Scopolamine/Hyoscine (SNBB) – an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API)...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 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
As Congress focuses on how to drive down drug prices, there is bipartisan support for prohibiting reverse payment agreements, also known as “pay-for-delay” arrangements. These arrangements involve a brand-name pharmaceutical...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
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
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
In the first decision by a federal appeals court interpreting the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in FTC v. Actavis, the Third Circuit recently held in King Drug Co. of Florence v. SmithKline Beecham Corp. that so-called...more
In July of this year, the European Commission imposed fines on French pharmaceutical company Servier and five generic drug makers, including Lupin Ltd., totaling €427.7 million. The fines were the result of a five-year...more
In a recent interview, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of Competition chairwoman Deborah Feinstein announced that targeting pay-for-delay arrangements by pharmaceutical companies would continue as a top priority for the...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
On June 17, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) antitrust challenge to a reverse payment settlement agreement between drug manufacturers, otherwise known as a “pay-for-delay”...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
On June 17, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-3 in favor of the Federal Trade Commission and issued its long-awaited decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc. et al. 570 U.S. __ (2013), Slip Op....more
By rejecting the “scope of the patent” test and holding that reverse payment patent settlements “can sometimes violate the antitrust laws,” the Supreme Court of the United States subjects such settlements to greater antitrust...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
The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 on June 17, 2013 in favor of the Federal Trade Commission in FTC v. Actavis. Writing for the majority that included Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan, Justice Breyer’s opinion...more