Pharmaceutical ‘Pay-for-Delay’ Reexamined: A Dwindling Practice or a Persistent Problem?
[Laura Karas, Gerard F. Anderson and Robin Feldman] Abstract: The Supreme Court ruled in FTC v. Actavis that a delay in generic entry may be anticompetitive when part of a patent settlement that includes a large and otherwise unjustified value transfer to the generic company, termed a reverse payment patent settlement, or “pay-for-delay.” Following Actavis, drug companies have limited the size of reverse payments and have fashioned settlement terms that include more discreet categories of compensation to generic companies. In light of the fact that such settlements retain the potential for anticompetitive effects, the apparent size of the reverse payment may no longer be a useful gauge of the legality of pay-for-delay deals.
