Banning "Pay-For Delay" Settlements and Resale Price Maintenance are Senate Antitrust Subcommittee's Top Legislative Priorities

In a recent interview, Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights, discussed the subcommittee's legislative priorities for 2010. At the top of the list is passage of the Preserve Affordable Access to Generics Act, which would prevent anticompetitive "pay-for-delay" patent settlements in which a brand-name pharmaceutical company pays a generic drug maker millions of dollars in exchange for an agreement to stop selling a generic version of the drug.
 

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The FDA Transparency Initiative: Another One Way Street?

On May 19, 2010, FDA published on its website a series of proposals designed to promote “openness” and “transparency” in government. The document, entitled “FDA Transparency Initiative: Draft Proposals for Public Comment Regarding Disclosure Policies of the United States Food and Drug Administration” can be found here.  The document contains 21 specific proposals about changing the Agency’s policies of disclosure of information submitted to it and about interim decisions made by it.
 

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Antitrust Division Will Not Challenge Cost Information Exchange Program in California

In a Business Review Letter[1] dated April 26, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (hereinafter, “the Division”) stated that it would not challenge a data sharing program proposed by three health care associations located in California. From the Division’s vantage point, the program posed little risk of facilitating anticompetitive conduct; rather, the most likely effect of the program would be to increase transparency about the relative costs and utilization rates of hospitals that participated in the survey.
 

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