The Third Circuit’s ruling June 26 in In re Lamictal Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation brought a wider array of reverse-payment settlements between pharmaceutical companies under antitrust scrutiny, bolstering the FTC’s efforts against such accords and ensuring more complicated reviews of the so-called pay-for-delay deals, antitrust attorneys have said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit became the first appeals court to address whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, which allowed antitrust scrutiny of cash settlements by drug manufacturers to keep generic versions of their products off the market, also applies to noncash settlements of such disputes. The court said it did.
