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US: Duke, Allergan beat antitrust suit

By  |  September 18, 2019

According to Bloomberg, Duke University and Allergan convinced a District of New Jersey judge to strip antitrust counterclaims from their lawsuit accusing Akorn of infringing a patent on the eyelash-loss drug Latisse.

The suit claims Akorn’s generic version of Latisse infringes on one of the many patents on it. It’s the fourth Latisse infringement case filed against Akorn by Duke, the patent holder, and Allergan, which is licensed to sell the drug, in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey.

The prior cases culminated in rulings barring Allergan from reasserting patents that were too similar to those previously rejected, but Duke and Allergan argue that the patent in question here covers methods of use, not chemical compounds.

Akorn sought invalidation of the patent, a declaration it wasn’t infringed, or a ruling that it was too similar to the other rejected Latisse patents, and it filed multiple antitrust claims.

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