The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s broad rule banning noncompete employment clauses has been struck down by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. In a final judgment from Judge Ada Brown, the court set aside the noncompete rule, saying it won’t be enforced or take effect as had been planned on Sept. 4.
Privacy legislation was passed and implemented in the European Union, but the picture in the U.S. is pockmarked by state legislation, a scenario that raises concerns about a fractured and impracticable compliance regime.
Regulation of artificial intelligence for medical devices is still a developing space, but market competition authorities in the European Union, the U.K. and the U.S. are already examining the potential for anticompetitive behavior in this rapidly growing technological arena.
As the U.S. Congress continues to pass laws that require federal agencies to issue rules to implement new statutory provisions, a group of lawmakers is reminding the agencies that it will be looking over their shoulders to ensure they don’t stray beyond the scope of the law or overstep their authority.
Just a day after the U.S. FTC released an interim report on harmful pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) practices and appeared before a House subcommittee that encouraged the commissioners to take enforcement action, the agency reportedly was preparing to file suit against the country’s three largest PBMs over their practices in negotiating insulin and other drug prices.
In the recently cast shadow of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision that unraveled Chevron deference for federal agencies, the FTC’s broad rule banning noncompete employment clauses is on shaky ground. The first tremor hit July 3 when the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas temporarily enjoined the FTC Noncompete Rule that is scheduled to go into effect Sept. 4 on the grounds that the agency overstepped its authority.
The redacted interim report released July 9 of an ongoing FTC investigation into pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) shed little, if any, new insight into PBM practices and how they impact availability and pricing of prescription drugs in the U.S.
In the third-largest acquisition announced this year, pharma giant Eli Lilly and Co. is buying oral integrin therapies developer Morphic Holding Inc. for $3.2 billion. Morphic stock (NASDAQ:MORF) got a tremendous boost from the acquisition, with shares closing 75% upward at $55.74 each on July 8, the day the deal was announced.
Even though the U.S. FTC recently claimed a court victory in its campaign to shut down the listing of device patents for drugs in the FDA’s Orange Book, 80% of the listings targeted in the commission’s first round of warning letters remain in place more than seven months later.
The U.S. FTC’s campaign against the Orange Book listing of patents claiming device components gained momentum when a federal judge in New Jersey ordered Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. to delist five device patents pertaining to its Proair HFA (albuterol sulfate) inhaler.
RSS
