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US: Judge rules Effexor “pay for delay” case will continue

By  |  September 20, 2018
A suit accusing Wyeth and Teva inflating the price of antidepressant Effexor XR, which already ascended once to the Third Circuit, remains largely intact on remand after a federal judge in New Jersey ruled on a series of defense motions to dismiss, reported Law.com.

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    US District Judge Peter Sheridan denied a motion to dismiss the case in its entirety. He granted several motions to dismiss various state-law claims, but most of those claims were dismissed without prejudice, allowing plaintiffs a chance to correct various deficiencies in their pleadings.

    The ruling came in a suit filed on behalf of a putative class made up of labor unions, insurance companies and other indirect purchasers who say they are charged more for Effexor XR due to various anti-competitive tactics by Wyeth, which is a subsidiary of Pfizer, and Teva.

    The plaintiffs claim Pfizer entered into an unlawful, “pay for delay” deal with Teva in 2005 concerning the timing of a generic version of Effexor XR. The suit also claims the defendants fraudulently obtained three patents for Effexor XR from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, then engaged in sham litigation over those patents.

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