Decades-Old Glenmark / Merck / Legacy Schering-Plough "Pay To Delay" Generic Zetia® Antitrust Case In USDC In Virginia May FINALLY Go To Trial April 17, 2023

Ahem. This blog was born out of what I regarded as chicanery by then CEO Fred Hassan, at legacy Schering-Plough -- which long ago was crushed out of existence by its 50/50 partner in what were the cholesterol management franchise businesses -- a company called. . . Merck.

Way back then (2007-2009), I followed their wildly-byzantine moves to keep the juggernauts Vytorin^® and Zetia^® streaming billions and billions in sales. . . despite evidence that, as a fine Yale cardiologist (one Dr. Harlan Krumholz) so memorably put it at ACCA in Spring 2008. . . they were simply. . . "very expensive placebos."

So then sales nose-dived. And generics, including Glenmark (the first authorized generic) hit the US market, after a deal which delayed entry by over five years. Here about 14 years later, a US Court will finally take a look at whether the agreement to delay entry was a violation of the Sherman and Clayton Acts (that's the ruling setting it for trial). [So Martin Shkreli's Daraprim^® gambit may not have been not so unique after all -- just more. . . brazen. There is credible evidence that Hassan. . . "taught" Shkreli. . . the "graft / craft", of it, as well. But Martin was far more Brooklyn / street thug "in your face" about it, to be certain -- all though with essentially the same cha-cha, as the below.]

So here is the latest from FiercePharma reporting:

. . .Thirteen years after the fact, a copycat accord with Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has come back to haunt Merck & Co. And now, the alleged pay-for-delay collaborators must face a jury trial.

Late last week, a Virginia federal judge scrapped Merck and Glenmark’s bid for summary judgment in the five-year-old case, which claims the drugmakers leveraged a 2010 settlement to stifle generics of Merck’s former cholesterol blockbuster Zetia.

Drug purchasers, payers and retailers filed their original suit in 2018 and amended the case the following year. The plaintiffs allege Merck paid Glenmark around $800 million in an “unlawful reverse-payment” to delay the launch of its Zetia copycat -- which was the first generic to hit the market back in Dec. 2016 -- for nearly five years. . . .

[A USDC Magistrate, Douglas Miller, in his September 2022] report urg[ed] the federal the judge overseeing the case, Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, to put the case to a jury. He argued there were multiple issues at play surrounding the companies’ 2010 settlement, including the deal’s value and whether the pact included an anticompetitive angle. . . .

Really mostly just a clean up, from my coverage of the early 2000s -- yep, so now. . . getting on 15 years ago. . . where did the time. . . go? Smile.

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