The makers of the testosterone therapy AndroGel could not have prevailed on patent infringement actions they filed against a generic drug maker over the medication, a federal judge has ruled. The decision is a win for the Federal Trade Commission, which is contending that the drugmakers only filed the patent actions to delay a generic form of the drug from entering the market.
U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Sept. 15 granted the FTC summary judgment on one of two prongs needed to establish that the defendants, AbbVie and Besins Healthcare, engaged in monopolistic conduct by filing the allegedly sham patent lawsuit against Teva and Perrigo Co. Specifically, he determined the patent lawsuits were “without question objectively baseless.”
