The Washington Legal Foundation’s (WLF) webinar on False Claims Act (FCA) litigation highlighted several developments in case law, including that non-relator FCA cases were up significantly in fiscal year 2020. However, Jay Stephens, an attorney with Kirkland & Ellis LLP, noted that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has taken aim yet again at the materiality standard for false claims as spelled out in the Supreme Court’s Escobar, a move which if successful could amplify the federal enforcement focus on life science companies.
The Medicare Part D rebate rule finalized by the Trump administration last November could be in limbo for a while. As it did with other so-called midnight rules issued in the waning days of the Trump presidency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under the Biden administration, is postponing the implementation of the rule, which was intended to simplify the U.S. drug pricing system by eliminating the rebates drug makers pay to pharmacy benefit managers for formulary placement or requiring plans to pass the discounts directly to patients.
Life science companies doing business during a pandemic may believe that patients, judges and juries will look kindly on products that don’t perform as promised, but that may be an empty wish.
Life science companies doing business during a pandemic may believe that patients, judges and juries will look kindly on products that don’t perform as promised, but that may be an empty wish. Angela Seaton, an attorney with the D.C. office of Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, advised that companies that want to break into new markets because of pandemic-specific demand should do their homework, including a review of U.S. FDA warning letters.
Ongoing litigation between rivals Edwards Lifesciences Corp. and Abbott Laboratories is over, with the two settling all outstanding patent disputes in cases related to transcatheter mitral and tricuspid repair products. Details of the settlement remain confidential.
The U.S. FDA’s enforcement regarding products related to the COVID-19 pandemic has picked up steam recently, but the U.S. Federal trade commission (FTC) is also involved in this enforcement arena. Leonard Gordon, a partner at Venable LLP’s New York office, told BioWorld that while the FTC and FDA missions seem to overlap, the FTC primarily targets unsupportable advertising claims rather than product labeling, a particularly relevant area in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We look forward to the day where we can get back to normal,” U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday at a COVID-19 news conference in which reporters sat every-other-seat apart. In an unusually somber tone, the president said it now looks like it will be at least July or August before the outbreak “washes through.”
With little more than a month to go before a trial begins in a multidistrict litigation (MDL) against several opioid manufacturers, privately owned Purdue Pharma LP is continuing its efforts to settle with all the plaintiffs involved.
Depending on who's talking, the U.S. patent system may, or may not, be in dire need of reform. In a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Wednesday on the bipartisan STRONGER Patents Act, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) stressed the need to undo the precedent set by the Supreme Court's 13-year-old eBay decision that weakened injunctive relief in infringement cases and to resolve some of the unintended consequences of the 2011 America Invents Act (AIA).
