FTC Files Amicus Brief with US Appeals Court to reverse pay-for-delay ruling

Continuing its battle against pay-for-delay between drug originators and generic makers, the US Federal Trade Commission revealed yesterday that it has filed an amicus brief before the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in support of private class action plaintiffs who have challenged the legality of patent settlements between branded and generic manufacturers.

The basis of such accords is that drug originators make payments to the generic drugmaker in return for dropping challenges to a patent and establish a date when the non-branded version of the compound can be sold. The FTC’s Chairman Jon Leibowitz has long argued that such “collusive deals” are costing US consumers as much as $3.5 billion in higher medicines prices (The Pharma Letters passim).

A recent FTC staff report found that the number of these deals skyrocketed more than 60%, from 19 in fiscal year 2009 to 31 in FY 2010 (TPL May 5). Overall, the agreements reached in the latest fiscal year involved 22 different brand-name pharmaceutical products with combined annual US sales of about $9.3 billion, the report stated.