Existential threshold
The number of companies that can bring treble-damages claims against drug manufacturers for violating federal antitrust law has dwindled. The scarcity has grown so acute that last week it crossed an existential threshold.
Continue Reading Multiples for Pharma Buyers Pursuing Opt-Out Antitrust Claims
The owner of a patent on a brand-name drug sues a competitor for infringing the patent. The parties settle. But the infringer doesn't pay. The patent-owner does. Why? In return for the competitor's agreement not to compete during the rest of the patent's term.
Four of our 13 courts of appeals held that such a "reverse
Today the Supreme Court granted review in Federal Trade Comm'n v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, No. 12-416 (U.S.), an antitrust case that presents the question of whether section 1 of the Sherman Act bars Competitor A from paying Competitor B to delay rolling out a generic drug that vies for sales with Competitor A's brand-name drug. Posts
K-Dur treats low potassium. We think.
Since 2003, the Federal Trade Commission has fought a losing battle to halt bargains in which a brand-name drug-maker pays a generic competitor to put off entering the market. Pacts like that, the agency urged, result in "reverse payments", which compensate a patent infringer not to do stuff that might infringe the patent. Such arrangements violate antitrust law