Partners Carl Hittinger and Jeffry Duffy authored an article published by The Legal Intelligencer on July 27, 2018. The article, “Actavis and Reverse-Payments Suits in the Third Circuit After Five Years,” examines how purportedly anticompetitive patent-litigation settlement agreements between rival branded and generic pharmaceutical manufacturers—so-called “reverse payment” or “pay for delay” settlements—have generated numerous private lawsuits and remain one of the Federal Trade Commission’s top enforcement priorities. In the five years since Actavis, federal courts in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit have continued to wrestle with a disproportionate share of reverse-payment lawsuits. Those cases have generated a series of rulings by the Third Circuit addressing some of the significant questions left open by Actavis. In their article, Hittinger and Duffy review the rulings and the status of issues left open by Actavis.
