US: FTC’s antitrust suit against dismissed

Shire ViroPharma on Monday hammered a Federal Trade Commission antitrust suit over alleged abuse of the US Food and Drug Administration’s citizen petition process to delay generic competition, calling it procedurally improper and an affront to constitutional rights.

US District Judge Richard Andrews in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday ruled the FTC had not met a prerequisite for bringing a lawsuit seeking an injunction in the first place by showing that Shire ViroPharma Inc was about to violate a law.

It was unclear if the FTC would seek to revise its lawsuit, which Andrews said he would allow. The FTC and Dublin-based Shire did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

In its lawsuit, the regulator alleged that ViroPharma, which Shire acquired in 2014, had from 2006 to 2012 filed repeated and unsupported filings with the US Food and Drug Administration to slow approval of generic competitors to Vancocin.

The FTC said ViroPharma, which acquired the drug’s rights from Eli Lilly in 2004, began filing petitions with the FDA in 2006 when the agency set a streamlined procedure for proving that generic rivals were the same chemically as Vancocin.

Full Content: Reuters

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