FTC seeks US Supreme Court review in AndroGel 'pay-for-delay' case

At the request of the US Federal Trade Commission, the Solicitor General of the USA petitioned the country’s Supreme Court to review a recent federal appeals court ruling concerning the FTC’s case against a “pay-for-delay” agreement that postponed generic competition for the testosterone-replacement drug AndroGel. The filing, a petition for certiorari, was made with the Court last Thursday. The Supreme Court case is Federal Trade Commission v Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc, No 12-416.

On February 2, 2009, the FTC filed a complaint in federal district court challenging agreements in which Solvay Pharmaceuticals, now part of US health care major Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT), paid generic drug makers Watson Pharmaceuticals NYSE: WPI), Paddock Laboratories, and Par Pharmaceutical to delay generic competition to Solvay’s branded testosterone-replacement drug, a prescription pharmaceutical with annual sales of more than $400 million.

The complaint alleged that the companies violated the antitrust laws when Solvay paid the generic firms millions of dollars annually in exchange for their agreements to abandon their patent challenges to Solvay’s drug and to refrain from marketing a generic version of AndroGel until 2015.