Corporate & Securities Law

House Bill To Ban ?Reverse Payment? Settlements Introduced

By David Fischer

On Wednesday, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) introduced H.R. 1706, the “Protecting Consumer Access to Generic Drugs Act of 2009.”  The Bill is very similar to S. 369, ”The Preserve Access to Affordable Generics Act” introduced in the Senate in February (Antitrust Review analysis of that bill is here).

There are some minor differences.  For example, the Senate bill proposes that:

?(a) It shall be unlawful under this Act for any person, in connection with the sale of a drug product, to directly or indirectly be a party to any agreement resolving or settling a patent infringement claim in which–

The House bill is same except paragraph (2) reads “the ANDA filer agrees not to research, develop, manufacture, market, or sell, for any period of time, the drug that is to be manufactured under the ANDA involved and is the subject of the patent infringement claim.”

Another difference is that the Senate bill defines agreement as “means anything that would constitute an agreement under section 1 of the Sherman Act (15 U.S.C. 1) or section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 45).”  The House bill drops “under section 1 of the Sherman Act (15 U.S.C. 1)” from its definition.

These, and other differences, however, should not obscure the fact that the bills are substantively the same.

Full post as published by Antitrust Review on March 27, 2009 (boomark / email).