Life Sciences

  • May 01, 2024

    Bayer Can't Scratch Off Antitrust Suit Over Flea, Tick Meds

    A California federal judge has largely declined Bayer's bid to dismiss generics competitor Tevra's pet medication antitrust suit, saying in an order released Wednesday that there are factual disputes about whether Bayer's exclusivity deals with distributors and retailers significantly foreclosed Tevra's potential sales in the market.

  • May 01, 2024

    Median Patent Damages Awards Are Shrinking

    A New York accounting firm that provides damages experts for intellectual property cases has found in a new study that median damages awards in patent cases have declined over the last 15 years.

  • May 01, 2024

    Eiger Gets Deal With Merck Over $46M Rare-Disease Drug Sale

    Bankrupt Eiger BioPharmaceuticals Inc. told a Texas federal judge Wednesday it had struck a tentative agreement with drug company Merck & Co. over licensing rights to a rare-disease drug that it is selling for $46.1 million.

  • May 01, 2024

    3rd Circ. Flags Bayer's Knowledge Of Tainted Fungal Spray

    A proposed class of consumers who bought tainted Bayer antifungal sprays said they should have standing to sue because they didn't get the "benefit of the bargain" — and a Third Circuit panel questioned Wednesday if Bayer's separate suit blaming a supplier made the consumers' case for them.

  • May 01, 2024

    'Foul' BioVentrix Cash-Out Gets Extra Scrutiny, Chancery Says

    A medical device company's decision to suddenly and without explanation cash out its common stockholders for less than a penny just two months before the company raised $48.5 million in new capital creates such a "foul flavor" that it deserves extra scrutiny, a Delaware Chancery Court judge said Wednesday.

  • May 01, 2024

    J&J Unit Cuts Deal To End Cancer Drug Trade Secret Fight

    A New Jersey federal judge has signed off on a consent judgment that permanently bars Chinese drugmaker Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co. from misappropriating Johnson and Johnson's pharmaceutical subsidiary Janssen's trade secrets for its popular chemotherapy drug Yondelis.

  • May 01, 2024

    5th Circ. Judge Skeptical Of Medicare Drug 'Price-Setting'

    A Fifth Circuit judge on Wednesday sharply criticized the Biden administration's Medicare drug pricing program, characterizing it as government "price-setting" and questioning "what possible procompetitive justification" there can be for penalizing companies that don't participate.

  • May 01, 2024

    Insulin Pump Maker Wins Toss of Investor Suit For Now

    A California federal judge has sided with an insulin pump maker and tossed a suit alleging it misled investors about the potential growth of the company amid inflation and an uptick in competition, saying the suing investors have failed to plead any false or misleading statements or knowledge of wrongdoing by the defendants.

  • May 01, 2024

    Attys Say $5M Fee In Acella Settlement A Modest Proposal

    Plaintiffs' attorneys who recently reached a $46.5 million class action settlement with Acella Pharmaceuticals LLC over faulty thyroid medication asked a Georgia federal judge Tuesday to sign off on their $5 million cut of the deal as a "presumptively reasonable" proposal.

  • May 01, 2024

    AI Is Top Of Mind For Companies — And Securities Regulators

    As references to artificial intelligence in securities filings soar, attorneys say companies must ground their disclosures in fact and be upfront about risks posed by AI in order to avoid the wrath of regulators, who promise to crack down on misleading claims.

  • May 01, 2024

    J&J Proposes $6.5B Deal To End Ovarian Cancer Claims

    Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday it is proposing a prepackaged reorganization plan for its talc unit that will pay out $6.5 billion to resolve claims that its talc-based baby powder caused ovarian cancer, if a supermajority of claimants agree to the plan.

  • April 30, 2024

    Ex-Olympus Exec Says He Was Fired For Flagging FDA Issue

    The former global head of product development at medical manufacturer Olympus Corp. said he was fired earlier this year after he reported multiple compliance concerns regarding the company's practices and related to nearly 100 products, according to a suit filed Monday in Pennsylvania federal court.

  • April 30, 2024

    Judge Strikes Parts Of NC Law Restricting Abortion Drug

    A North Carolina federal judge struck down parts of a state law Tuesday that restricts access to the abortion medication mifepristone, finding some provisions violate the U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause by enacting safety regulations already considered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, such as requiring in-person prescribing, dispensing and scheduling around the drug.

  • April 30, 2024

    Tech. Orgs Deny Being 'Apple's Puppets' In Watch Ban Fight

    A group of technology industry groups claimed they are "not Apple's puppets" as they seek to back the company in its Federal Circuit appeal of the U.S. International Trade Commission's ban on imports of Apple Watch models capable of monitoring blood oxygen levels.

  • April 30, 2024

    Chase Can't Escape Medical Services Co.'s Defamation Suit

    A Florida federal judge refused Monday to toss a suit by a medical services company accusing JPMorgan Chase Bank NA of destroying its business by adding it to a "blacklist," canceling its transactions and falsely telling its business partners that sanctions typically applied to violators of international laws or human rights statutes caused the cancellations.

  • April 30, 2024

    Pharmacyclics Can't Score Fees After Imbruvica Patent Win

    Delaware's top federal judge on Tuesday told AbbVie's Pharmacyclics LLC unit that it was "also guilty of vexatious conduct" and had no standing to seek legal fees after it won a patent infringement suit against generic-drug rivals over its branded blockbuster cancer drug Imbruvica.

  • April 30, 2024

    Amgen Cuts Deal To End Bone Drug IP Suit Against Sandoz

    A New Jersey federal judge has signed off on a deal that would end a suit where Amgen accused Sandoz of infringing patents on treatments for bone cancer and bone problems.

  • April 30, 2024

    SEC Fines 3 Men For Insider Trading On Zogenix Buyout

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reached deals Tuesday totaling more than $170,000 with three men accused of trading shares of biopharmaceutical company Zogenix Inc. based on insider information.

  • April 30, 2024

    BCBS Says Federal Drug Law Preempts NM Medical Weed Row

    A group of insurers, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico, urged a New Mexico federal judge to reject a proposed class action seeking to compel them to cover their policyholders' medical marijuana costs, arguing that state law doesn't require it and federal law forbids it.

  • April 30, 2024

    Pfizer Can't Slip COVID-19 Vax Suit, Texas Tells Court

    The Texas attorney general told a federal judge not to let Pfizer Inc. out of its suit accusing the pharmaceutical company of misleading the public about its COVID-19 vaccine, arguing the suit was properly pled under state law in a brief filed Monday.

  • April 30, 2024

    Drug Company Can't Escape Texas Counties' Opioid MDL

     A Texas appeals court on Tuesday declined to cut loose a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical manufacturer from Texas multidistrict litigation over opioid addiction in the state, finding that the counties of Dallas and Bexar have demonstrated that it's made deliberate moves toward the Texas market.

  • April 30, 2024

    3rd Circ. Preview: Kavanaugh Classmate Takes On HuffPost

    The Third Circuit's May lineup will find the court weighing HuffPost's battle with an allegedly libeled former classmate of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and claims by consumers alleging they bought defective Bayer antifungal medicine.

  • April 30, 2024

    Judge Tosses LTL's Suit Over Article Linking Talc To Cancer

    A New Jersey federal judge on Tuesday tossed a suit from the bankrupt talc unit of Johnson & Johnson accusing three doctors of damaging its business through a medical journal article it claimed was backed by "junk science," ruling that the doctors having served as expert witnesses in the Garden State is not enough to show that the court has jurisdiction over its claims.

  • April 30, 2024

    FTC Continues To Target 'Junk' Drug Patents

    Federal trade officials told a series of pharmaceutical companies — including the makers of the controversial diabetes and weight loss drug Ozempic — that they may have listed faulty patents in a key register of a federal drug database.

  • April 30, 2024

    Vaxart Investors Want Sanctions Over Deleted Texts

    A group of Vaxart investors asked a California federal judge to issue sanctions against Armistice Capital LLC, which previously controlled Vaxart and allegedly sold $267 million worth of its Vaxart shares at inflated prices, saying the hedge fund and its executives purposely deleted text messages integral to the investors' claims.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Cheering In The NFL Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Balancing my time between a BigLaw career and my role as an NFL cheerleader has taught me that pursuing your passions outside of work is not a distraction, but rather an opportunity to harness important skills that can positively affect how you approach work and view success in your career, says Rachel Schuster at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Args In APA Case Amplify Justices' Focus On Agency Power

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    In arguments last week in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve, the U.S. Supreme Court justices paid particular importance to the possible ripple effects of their decision, which will address when a facial challenge to long-standing federal rules under the Administrative Procedure Act first accrues and could thus unleash a flood of new lawsuits, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.

  • Series

    ESG Around The World: Gulf Cooperation Council

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    The Gulf Cooperation Council is in the early stages of ESG policy implementation, but recent commitments by both states and corporations — including increases in sustainable finance transactions, environmental commitments, female representation on boards and human rights enforcement — show continuing progress toward broader ESG goals, say attorneys at Cleary.

  • Opinion

    J&J Bankruptcy Could Thwart Accountability For Victims

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    Johnson & Johnson's latest attempt at a "Texas Two-Step" bankruptcy proceeding exemplifies the way in which corporate defendants can use bankruptcy to evade accountability, limit resources available to victims, and impose flawed, one-size-fits-all resolutions on diverse groups of plaintiffs, says Michelle Simpson Tuegel at Simpson Tuegel Law.

  • Inside The PTAB's Seagen Cancer Drug Patent Decision

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    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board's recent finding that Seagen's claims for antibody-drug conjugate technology were unpatentable — for lack of enablement, lack of written description and anticipation — mark the latest chapter in the complex patent dispute as the case heads for director review, says Ryan Hagglund at Loeb & Loeb.

  • 6 Pointers For Attys To Build Trust, Credibility On Social Media

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    In an era of information overload, attorneys can use social media strategically — from making infographics to leveraging targeted advertising — to cut through the noise and establish a reputation among current and potential clients, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.

  • Opinion

    Biden Admin's March-In Plan Would Hurt Medical Innovation

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    The Biden administration's proposal to reinterpret the Bayh-Dole Act and allow the government to claw back patents when it determines that a commercialized product's price is too high would discourage private investment in important research and development, says Ken Thorpe at the Rollins School of Public Health.

  • A Post-Mortem Analysis Of Stroock's Demise

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    After the dissolution of 147-year-old firm Stroock late last year shook up the legal world, a post-mortem analysis of the data reveals a long list of warning signs preceding the firm’s collapse — and provides some insight into how other firms might avoid the same disastrous fate, says Craig Savitzky at Leopard Solutions.

  • What's On The Horizon In Attorney General Enforcement

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    A look at recent attorney general actions, especially in the areas of antitrust and artificial intelligence, can help inform businesses on what they should expect in terms of enforcement trends as 10 attorney general races play out in 2024, say attorneys at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Preparing For DOJ's Data Analytics Push In FCPA Cases

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    After the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent announcement that it will leverage data analytics in Foreign Corrupt Practice Act investigations and prosecutions, companies will need to develop a compliance strategy that likewise implements data analytics to get ahead of enforcement risks, say attorneys at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Reducing The Risk Of PFAS False Advertising Class Actions

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    A wave of class actions continues to pummel products that allegedly contain per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances, with plaintiffs challenging advertising that they say misleads consumers by implying an absence of PFAS — but there are steps companies can take to minimize risk, say attorneys at Keller and Heckman.

  • Series

    Coaching High School Wrestling Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Coaching my son’s high school wrestling team has been great fun, but it’s also demonstrated how a legal career can benefit from certain experiences, such as embracing the unknown, studying the rules and engaging with new people, says Richard Davis at Maynard Nexsen.

  • Opinion

    New Rule 702 Helps Judges Keep Bad Science Out Of Court

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    A court's recent decision to exclude dubious testimony from the plaintiffs' experts in multidistrict litigation over acetaminophen highlights the responsibility that judges have to keep questionable scientific evidence out of courtrooms, particularly under recent amendments to Federal Rule of Evidence 702, says Sherman Joyce at the American Tort Reform Association.

  • SG's Office Is Case Study To Help Close Legal Gender Gap

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    As women continue to be underrepresented in the upper echelons of the legal profession, law firms could learn from the example set by the Office of the Solicitor General, where culture and workplace policies have helped foster greater gender equality, say attorneys at Ocean Tomo.

  • Opinion

    Patent Waiver For COVID Meds Would Harm US Biopharma

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    If the Biden administration backs the World Trade Organization in waiving patent rights on COVID-19 treatments, it would negatively affect the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry and help foreign competitors, without necessarily expanding global access to COVID-19 care, says clinical pathologist Wolfgang Klietmann.

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