US: 3rd Circuit won’t send Remicade antitrust case to arbitration

The full 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, October 21, declined to reconsider a ruling that forced into arbitration an antitrust case by a drug wholesaler accusing Johnson & Johnson of suppressing competition for its blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug Remicade, reported Reuters. 

The ruling, issued on September 13 by a three-judge panel, had overturned a 2018 decision by US District Judge Curtis Joyner in Philadelphia by holding that a broadly worded arbitration clause contained in the drug distribution contract Rochester Drug Cooperative (RDC) had with J&J covered its claims.

In its complaint, filed in 2018, RDC noted that, despite competition from biosimilars, J&J’s brand-name infliximab maintained and even increased its prices. “J&J did not achieve this unusual result by competition on the merits,” stated the complaint, “but instead through a multifaceted scheme to block biosimilar competition to Remicade through a web of exclusive dealing contracts.”

This case is just one of multiple cases related to J&J’s strategy to defend its market share for infliximab. In 2017, Pfizer filed an antitrust suit against J&J, alleging that the drug maker’s tactics had effectively denied patients access to biosimilar therapies (including Pfizer’s Inflectra) and undermined price competition in the biologics marketplace.

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