Corporate & Securities Law

Leibowitz on ?Reverse Payment? Settlements

By David Fischer

It must be “reverse payment” week as FTC Chairman Leibowitz gave a speech this morning on the topic.  The FTC press release states that:

an internal FTC analysis projects that stopping collusive ?pay-for-delay? settlements between brand and generic pharmaceutical firms would save consumers $3.5 billion a year and also reap significant savings for the federal government, which pays approximately one-third of all prescription drug costs.  Chairman Leibowitz urged Congress to pass pending legislation to ban or restrict such anticompetitive patent settlements, in which manufacturers of brand-name drugs pay potential generic competitors to stay out of the market, as a way to control prescription drug costs, restore the benefits of generic competition, and help pay for health care reform.

The full text of the speech is here.

Full post as published by Antitrust Review on June 23, 2009 (boomark / email).