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
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
Premier forum which shapes the law, policy, and proceedings of Paragraph IV Litigation is back to New York City on April 26-27! Pharmaceutical patent practitioners from across the globe attend this flagship conference to...more
For nearly a decade, the Supreme Court’s FTC v. Actavis decision has guided pharmaceutical litigators and advisors exploring the antitrust risks inherent in settling pharmaceutical patent lawsuits, especially when such...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) sued AbbVie and Besins Healthcare, co-owners of a patent that covered brand AndroGel, in 2017. The FTC claimed that the manufacturers had brought “sham” patent infringement litigation in...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 June 9, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard oral argument in Impax Laboratories, Inc., Etc. v. Federal Trade Commission. The appeal by pharmaceutical manufacturer Impax marks the first time a...more
On February 3, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") and the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") issued a joint statement and plan seeking to advance biosimilar competition and combat deceptive and anticompetitive...more
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 May 23, 2019, 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 (MMA),...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
Antitrust - FTC Announces Revised Hart-Scott-Rodino Thresholds for Acquisitions and Exclusive Licenses - The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced this year's revisions to the thresholds under the...more
On October 26, the Boston Patent Law Association will host a panel featuring Judge William Young to discuss the legal landscape following the Supreme Court’s 2014 opinion in Actavis v. FTC...more
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in FTC v. Actavis, finding that although so-called reverse payment settlement agreements were not per se antitrust violations in cases brought against generic drug makers...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
Applying its previous rulings in related litigation and interpreting FTC v. Actavis, 570 U.S. 756 (2013), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania was tasked with determining whether to preclude expert...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
In the ongoing battles over the antitrust treatment of pharmaceutical patent settlements, the Federal Trade Commission and private industry have not agreed on much. But a recent FTC amicus brief appears to signal a high level...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