Supreme Court won't hear Tamoxifen Citrate Antitrust Litigation on reverse payments

WSJ online notes:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday [June 25, 2007] turned away a challenge to a "reverse payments" deal between an AstraZeneca PLC unit and a Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. unit to delay marketing of a generic breast-cancer drug.

The rejection came after the U.S. Solicitor General's Office filed a legal brief steering the justices away from the case.

Reverse payments occur when pharmaceutical companies pay a generic drug maker to hold off on marketing an alternative version of a brand-name drug near the end of exclusive patent protections. In an unusual public dispute between two federal agencies, the Federal Trade Commission [FTC], which is working to stop the patent deals, and the Justice Department [DOJ] have been at odds over whether the Supreme Court should weigh in on the practice.

IPBiz notes that just as IT and pharma are NOT on the same page on patent reform, the DOJ and the FTC were not on the same page in the tamoxifen matter.

See previous IPBiz posts:

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/03/more-on-upcoming-battle-on-drug-patent.html

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/04/getting-drugs-out-as-economically-as.html

[IPBiz notes, more often than not, the Supreme Court follows the Solicitor's advice on hearing cases. Here WSJ Online said: U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, in the government's brief, said the Second Circuit didn't properly review the reverse-payment deal. But Mr. Clement nonetheless said the case should not be heard by the Supreme Court.]