Life Sciences

  • December 18, 2024

    CVS Fueled Opioid Epidemic In Rush For Profits, Feds Say

    The U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a suit Wednesday accusing CVS, the nation's largest pharmacy chain, of knowingly filling invalid prescriptions for powerful opioids and ignoring internal pleas from its pharmacists as it allegedly put profits over safety. 

  • December 18, 2024

    Amgen Hit With $50M Infringement Verdict Over Leukemia Drug

    Germany's Lindis Biotech has persuaded a Delaware federal jury that Amgen should pay $50.3 million in damages for encouraging healthcare providers to infringe the Munich company's immunotherapy patents through administering the leukemia drug Blincyto.

  • December 18, 2024

    FTC Wants Express Scripts' Defamation Suit Tossed

    The Federal Trade Commission told a Missouri federal court that Express Scripts Inc. has no basis to challenge an interim agency report that only offered "qualified conclusions" from an ongoing study about how pharmacy benefit managers affect prescription drug prices.

  • December 18, 2024

    RJ Reynolds Asks Justices To Toss Forum Shopping Argument

    R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's argument that the vape company engaged in forum shopping when it challenged denial of one of its applications in the Fifth Circuit, saying its Texas- and Mississippi-based co-petitioners make the Fifth Circuit the proper venue.

  • December 18, 2024

    SiteOne Gets $100M To Advance Non-Opioid Pain Treatments

    SiteOne Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on pain treatment, on Wednesday announced that it clinched a Series C funding round after securing $100 million from investors.

  • December 17, 2024

    11th Circ. Urged To Block Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone Law

    A Florida anti-abortion group urged the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday to give it another shot at an injunction preventing the city of Clearwater from enforcing a buffer zone ordinance that blocks the group from getting within five feet of the driveway to the city's only abortion clinic. 

  • December 17, 2024

    Laser Maker Loses Bid To Trim Patent Suit In Mass.

    A Massachusetts federal judge has shot down laser maker NKT Photonics' bid to dodge allegations it infringed one of the patents asserted in a lawsuit from a company owned by a University of Michigan professor.

  • December 17, 2024

    Express Scripts, OptumRx Can't Ditch LA County Opioid Suit

    A California judge ruled Tuesday that Los Angeles County can keep pursuing a lawsuit claiming pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts and OptumRx colluded with drugmakers to fuel the opioid epidemic, though the county must rework its complaint to specify how regulators were allegedly deceived.

  • December 17, 2024

    Sandoz Cuts $275M Deal For More Price-Fixing Claims

    Swiss drugmaker Sandoz said Tuesday it has reached a $275 million settlement to end claims from consumers, insurers and others in the sprawling multidistrict litigation over alleged price-fixing in the generic-drug industry.

  • December 17, 2024

    Stanford Profs Say Roche's Trade Secret Claims Time-Barred

    Stanford University's trustees and three of its professors have asked a California federal court to dismiss trade secret theft claims bought by subsidiaries of F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, arguing that the allegations are time-barred because the companies were on notice of the purported misappropriation for over three years before filing suit.

  • December 17, 2024

    House GOP Asks CVS How Its PBM Treats Smaller Pharmacies

    Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are demanding documents from CVS on its pharmacy benefit manager's treatment of independent pharmacies, continuing to press the healthcare giant over potentially anticompetitive conduct.

  • December 17, 2024

    The Biggest Georgia Legal Developments Of 2024

    From navigating bombshell prosecutor romance allegations in the Georgia election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump and his co-defendants to vacating a $1.7 billion verdict against Ford Motor Co. in a fatal "Super Duty" rollover case, to seeing the state's longest-running criminal trial to a close, 2024 was a busy year for courts in the Peach State. 

  • December 17, 2024

    Feds Intervene In $200M FCA Case Against CVS

    The federal government has intervened in a whistleblower case accusing CVS and its subsidiaries of pocketing more than $200 million in overpayments, in order to defend the constitutionality of the False Claims Act's whistleblower provisions.

  • December 17, 2024

    Drug Co. Investor Sues In Del. Over $140M Insider Windfall

    A pension fund investor in Cerevel Therapeutics Holdings Inc. has sued Bain Capital Investors LLC and other alleged insiders of the company in Delaware's Court of Chancery, accusing them of lining up a secondary offering in the biopharmaceutical venture before disclosure of its planned sale to AbbVie.

  • December 16, 2024

    Ginkgo Bioworks Investors Get Final OK Of $17.8M Settlement

    Investors in biotech company Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. have gotten final approval for their $17.75 million deal to end proposed class action claims that the company and its leaders distorted Ginkgo's finances, mischaracterizing certain related party deals, to garner shareholder support for its merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

  • December 16, 2024

    Becton Dickinson To Pay SEC $175M Over Pump Claims

    Becton Dickinson & Co. has agreed to pay $175 million to settle the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's allegations that the medical device manufacturer misled investors about the risks of selling its Alaris infusion pump and overstated its income, the agency announced Monday.

  • December 16, 2024

    11th Circ. Appears Wary Of Doc's New Trial Bid In $27.5M Case

    The Eleventh Circuit on Monday questioned whether a Georgia doctor and his medical practice should get a new trial in a $27.5 million False Claims Act case on the basis that he and an expert who wasn't allowed to testify at trial believed the thousands of treatments he billed for were medically necessary and could be covered by Medicare, saying that contention seems to contradict the doctor's prior statements. 

  • December 16, 2024

    The Biggest Patent Decisions Of 2024

    This year's notable patent decisions from the Federal Circuit provided clearer guidelines on double patenting and opened the door for new ways to invalidate design patents. Here's a look at the cases from 2024 that will shape patent litigation going forward.

  • December 16, 2024

    Allele, Regeneron Settle COVID Treatment Patent Suit

    Allele Biotechnology and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals have settled litigation accusing the latter of infringing a patent used in developing treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, a New York federal judge said Monday.

  • December 16, 2024

    Supreme Court Rejects Salix Appeal In IBS Drug Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court has turned away a bid by a Bausch Health unit to undo a Federal Circuit ruling that invalidated some of its patents on a blockbuster drug for irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea.

  • December 16, 2024

    With Legal Battle Looming, Neb. Legalizes Medical Marijuana

    Nebraska became the 39th state to legalize medical marijuana after supermajorities of voters approved ballot measures to decriminalize and regulate its sale, but the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge from state officials that could invalidate it before implementation.

  • December 13, 2024

    Medical Device Co. Brass Hid SPAC's True Value, Suit Says

    The executives and directors of a healthcare holding company have been hit with a shareholder derivative suit in Colorado federal court alleging the company hid the financial and regulatory risks it faced to inflate its value after merging with a blank check company.

  • December 13, 2024

    Pharma Co. Brass Face Investor Suit Over Drug Trial Probe

    Officers and directors of cancer treatment developer MacroGenics Inc. have been hit with a shareholder derivative action alleging they breached their fiduciary duties after the company announced three study participant deaths were being probed for a potential connection to the company's therapies.

  • December 13, 2024

    J&J Unit Deemed Family Duties A 'Distraction,' Suit Says

    A prosthetics company owned by Johnson & Johnson said an employee returning from parental leave had "distractions outside of work" as it gave him negative performance reviews before firing him, according to a suit filed in Massachusetts federal court Friday.

  • December 13, 2024

    What's Left In $400M Skinny Label Row? A Lot, Court Says

    A number of key issues remain live in the $400 million fight between Teva Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline over whether the generic-drug maker induced healthcare providers to infringe the brand-name company's heart drug patent, including the availability of a new trial, a Delaware federal judge has said.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    The Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan

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    Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.

  • New HHS Research Misconduct Rules Bring Seismic Changes

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    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' new rule regarding research misconduct investigations brings significant changes that focus on remediation, appeals and confidentiality, while other changes could result in institutions causing undue harm to scientists accused of such misconduct, say attorneys at Cohen Seglias.

  • State Of The States' AI Legal Ethics Landscape

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    Over the past year, several state bar associations, as well as the American Bar Association, have released guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, all of which share overarching themes and some nuanced differences, say Eric Pacifici and Kevin Henderson at SMB Law Group.

  • How Biden Admin Has Used Antitrust Tools, And What's Next

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    The last four years have been marked by an aggressive whole-of-government approach to antitrust enforcement using a broad range of tools, and may result in lasting change regardless of the upcoming presidential election result, say attorneys at Norton Rose.

  • Defining All-Risk: Despite $30M Loss, Loose Bolt Not 'Damage'

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    A Massachusetts federal court’s recent ruling in AMAG Pharmaceuticals v. American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Co., denying coverage for $30 million in damages claimed when a loose bolt caused an air leak, highlights an ongoing debate over the definition of “direct physical loss or damage,” say Josh Tumen and Paul Ferland at Cozen O'Connor.

  • The Shifting Role Of Patent Attorneys In The Age Of AI

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    The integration of artificial intelligence into patent drafting represents a significant change in how legal work is performed, and patent attorneys must shift from manual drafting to a strategy-oriented approach, says Ian Schick at Draft Builders.

  • 8 Childhood Lessons That Can Help You Be A Better Attorney

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    A new school year is underway, marking a fitting time for attorneys to reflect on some fundamental life lessons from early childhood that offer a framework for problems that no legal textbook can solve, say Chris Gismondi and Chris Campbell at DLA Piper.

  • Opinion

    This Election, We Need To Talk About Court Process

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    In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has markedly transformed judicial processes — from summary judgment standards to notice pleadings — which has, in turn, affected individuals’ substantive rights, and we need to consider how the upcoming presidential election may continue this pattern, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • A Look At The PTAB's Assessment Of Prior Art Exceptions

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    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board's approach over the last 10 years to assessing Section 102(b) prior art exceptions reveals a few trends, including that evidence of common ownership may have a higher likelihood of successfully disqualifying prior art under Section 102(b)(2)(C) at the institution stage, say Louis Panzica and David Holman at Sterne Kessler.

  • Series

    Playing Diplomacy Makes Us Better Lawyers

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    Similar to the practice of law, the rules of Diplomacy — a strategic board game set in pre-World War I Europe — are neither concise nor without ambiguity, and weekly gameplay with our colleagues has revealed the game's practical applications to our work as attorneys, say Jason Osborn and Ben Bevilacqua at Winston & Strawn.

  • How Patent Litigation Is Changing Amid Decline In Filings

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    Marked by a notable decline in case filings and preferred venue shifts, patent litigation has undergone significant changes over the last decade and litigation hot spots have shifted, encouraging a more strategic approach to patent disputes, says Saishruti Mutneja at Winston & Strawn.

  • Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys

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    Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.

  • Opinion

    FTC's Report Criticizing Drug Middlemen Is Flawed

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    The Federal Trade Commission's July report, which claims that pharmacy benefit managers are inflating drug costs, does not offer a credible analysis of PBMs, and its methodology lacks rigor, says Jay Ezrielev at Elevecon.

  • Series

    Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.

  • Del. Dispatch: Cautionary Tales Of 2 Earnout Effort Breaches

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    The Delaware Court of Chancery's tendency to interpret earnout provisions precisely as written, highlighted in two September rulings that found buyers breached their shareholder obligations when they failed to make reasonable efforts to hit certain product development milestones, demonstrates the paramount importance of precisely wording these agreements, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

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