Life Sciences

  • January 07, 2025

    New USPTO Advisers Include Mattel, Estee Lauder Attys

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday welcomed six additions to its patent and trademark advisory committees, including lead intellectual property attorneys at The Estee Lauder Cos. Inc. and Mattel Inc. 

  • January 07, 2025

    Cannabis Reformers Move To Oust DEA From Pot Hearings

    The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has worked behind the scenes to undermine an administrative process that will determine whether federal restrictions on marijuana are relaxed, a group of reformers alleged in a new filing submitted to an agency tribunal.

  • January 07, 2025

    Biotech Co. Urges NC Panel To Revive Legal Malpractice Suit

    A biotech company that lost a $22 million libel suit brought by a pharmaceutical executive has asked a North Carolina appeals panel for another shot at legal malpractice claims against its former legal counsel, arguing that a savings provision expands the statute of repose for the voluntarily dismissed claim to be revived.

  • January 06, 2025

    Athira Inks $4M FCA Deal Over Ex-CEO's Research Fraud

    Athira Pharma Inc. has agreed to pay $4 million to resolve allegations it used falsified academic research papers on neurological disorders like Alzheimer's to secure federal grants from the National Institute of Health, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.

  • January 06, 2025

    Sidley, Wachtell Guide Inari Medical's $4.9B Sale To Stryker

    Medical technology company Stryker Corp., represented by Sidley Austin LLP, announced Monday that it has inked an agreement to acquire device maker Inari Medical Inc., represented by Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, in a deal worth about $4.9 billion.

  • January 06, 2025

    High Court Asked To Take Whistleblower Medical Device Row

    A former Minerva Surgical Inc. sales representative who says he was mistreated after raising concerns about the safety of certain medical devices wants the U.S. Supreme Court to take up his challenge to an arbitration award given to his former employer in whistleblower proceedings.

  • January 06, 2025

    Biotech Trade Secrets Case Gets New Punitive Damages Trial

    A California federal judge has ordered a new punitive damages trial on how much a former Skye Orthobiologics LLC employee owes in a case where he was found to have breached his fiduciary duties by leveraging Skye's proprietary information, after ruling last year there wasn't enough evidence to support an earlier $25 million award.

  • January 06, 2025

    Biotech Co. Revance Faces Suit After Tender Offer Weakens

    Biotechnology company Revance Therapeutics Inc. and two of its executives face a proposed investor class action alleging the company hurt investors after the value of a take-private tender offer was negotiated down following allegations that Revance had breached a distribution deal with another company.

  • January 06, 2025

    DOD Adds WeChat Owner, CATL To Chinese Military Co. List

    The U.S. Department of Defense added dozens of businesses Monday to its list of companies affiliated with the Chinese military, including electric-car battery maker CATL and Tencent Holdings Ltd. — owner of the popular text-messaging app WeChat — prompting Tencent to slam the designation as "clearly a mistake."

  • January 06, 2025

    Labcorp Loses Appeal Of Gene-Testing Patent In $372M Case

    Labcorp, one of the world's largest chains of clinical lab providers, lost its appeal over a patent tied to a $372 million judgment it is facing in the Western District of Texas, after Federal Circuit judges on Monday upheld an administrative patent board ruling against it two years ago.

  • January 06, 2025

    Judge Urged To Sit Out Alopecia IP Row Over Ex-Clerk's Role

    Sun Pharmaceutical Industries has asked a New Jersey federal judge to recuse himself from a case alleging the company's alopecia drug infringes an Incyte patent, saying Incyte's attorneys hired the judge's former law clerk and put him on the case, creating "an indelible appearance of impropriety."

  • January 06, 2025

    Teoxane Outbids Crown With New Revance Therapeutics Bid

    Teoxane SA said Monday it has submitted a proposal to Revance Therapeutics Inc. to acquire the healthcare biotechnology company for $3.60 per share in cash, one-upping Revance's existing agreement to sell itself to skincare company Crown Laboratories Inc. for $3.10 per share in cash. 

  • January 06, 2025

    Girard Sharp Launches Into New Year With New Leadership

    San Francisco-based Girard Sharp has kicked off the new year with a major leadership change, announcing Monday that Daniel C. Girard had stepped down as managing partner of the prominent plaintiffs complex litigation boutique he founded in 1995 and that longtime partner Dena C. Sharp was taking the reins.

  • January 03, 2025

    Vizgen Loses Antitrust Claims Against 10x In Biotech IP Fight

    A Delaware federal court on Friday dropped Harvard's business partners at 10x Genomics Inc. out of some of the antitrust counterclaims by a rival biotech developer that is targeted in a patent lawsuit set for trial next month.

  • January 03, 2025

    Ex-Locke Lord IP Pros To Build Buchanan Chicago Office

    More than a dozen intellectual property pros from Locke Lord LLP, which officially merged with Troutman Pepper on Wednesday, are moving over to Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, and most of them are going to be part of launching the firm's new office in Chicago.

  • January 03, 2025

    Natera Loses New Trial Bid After Winning $96M Patent Verdict

    A Delaware federal judge denied Natera's bid for a new trial in a case where a jury awarded the DNA test company $96 million in damages after finding rival CareDx stole from one of its patents but didn't infringe a second patent, saying Friday that sufficient evidence backed the verdict.

  • January 03, 2025

    Aetna Says Takeda Inked Deal To Block Generics, Keep Profits

    Takeda Pharmaceuticals struck an anticompetitive deal with Par Pharmaceutical to keep a cheaper, generic version of its anticonstipation drug Amitiza off the market after the drug's compound patent expired, Aetna claimed Friday in a Massachusetts lawsuit, with the insurer alleging it overpaid millions of dollars for the brand name drug.

  • January 03, 2025

    DOJ Wants Oct. Amedisys Trial, UnitedHealth Wants Aug.

    The U.S. Department of Justice sparred with UnitedHealth Group in a Maryland federal court filing Friday over when to hold a trial on the government challenge to the $3.3 billion purchase of home health and hospice services company Amedisys Inc.

  • January 03, 2025

    PBMs 'Wasting' Time in Opioid MDL Discovery Spat: Judge

    An Ohio federal judge overseeing multidistrict opioid litigation on Friday denied pharmacy benefit managers a stay to appeal a discovery order and said he believed the PBMs were "wasting" the court's time.

  • January 03, 2025

    Cancer Drug Co. Revives Bid To Go Public Via Direct Listing

    Brain cancer-focused drug developer NeOnc Technologies Holdings Inc. filed plans on Friday to go public through a direct listing, represented by Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP, as it pursues an alternative to an initial public offering after canceling a prior IPO attempt.

  • January 03, 2025

    Pfizer Partner Targets GSK In COVID Vax Patent Suit

    A drug developer that Pfizer and BioNTech partnered with to develop their COVID-19 vaccine has opened up another legal front in a dispute over allegations that the Pfizer vaccine infringes patents issued to U.K. drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.

  • January 03, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Upholds Cancellation Of TMs On Pink Hip Implants

    The Federal Circuit on Friday said a trademark panel correctly canceled a German medical supplier's trade dress protections for the color pink in a hip joint implant part because the color is functional, citing the company's previous patents and public statements to support that conclusion.

  • January 03, 2025

    $15M Flea Collar MDL Deal Scores Swift Approval By Ill. Judge

    An Illinois federal judge gave his final blessing on Friday to a $15 million settlement in multidistrict litigation targeting adverse side effects that Bayer and other companies behind certain flea and tick collars allegedly failed to warn about.

  • January 03, 2025

    Biogen Not On Hook For Disruptions Caused By Landlord

    Biogen Inc. did not breach the terms of a sublease with biopharma components manufacturer Brammer Bio and bears no responsibility for any claimed losses suffered by Brammer during a construction project by the building's owner, a Massachusetts judge has concluded.

  • January 03, 2025

    Research Co. Can't Ax Affair Harassment Suit, Ex-Worker Says

    A former worker for a clinical research company asked a Georgia federal judge to deny the company's bid to toss her harassment suit claiming a co-worker made sexual comments about her father and started sleeping with him, arguing the conduct was severe enough to keep her case alive.

Expert Analysis

  • A Look At The PTAB's Assessment Of Prior Art Exceptions

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    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board's approach over the last 10 years to assessing Section 102(b) prior art exceptions reveals a few trends, including that evidence of common ownership may have a higher likelihood of successfully disqualifying prior art under Section 102(b)(2)(C) at the institution stage, say Louis Panzica and David Holman at Sterne Kessler.

  • Series

    Playing Diplomacy Makes Us Better Lawyers

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    Similar to the practice of law, the rules of Diplomacy — a strategic board game set in pre-World War I Europe — are neither concise nor without ambiguity, and weekly gameplay with our colleagues has revealed the game's practical applications to our work as attorneys, say Jason Osborn and Ben Bevilacqua at Winston & Strawn.

  • How Patent Litigation Is Changing Amid Decline In Filings

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    Marked by a notable decline in case filings and preferred venue shifts, patent litigation has undergone significant changes over the last decade and litigation hot spots have shifted, encouraging a more strategic approach to patent disputes, says Saishruti Mutneja at Winston & Strawn.

  • Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys

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    Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.

  • Opinion

    FTC's Report Criticizing Drug Middlemen Is Flawed

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    The Federal Trade Commission's July report, which claims that pharmacy benefit managers are inflating drug costs, does not offer a credible analysis of PBMs, and its methodology lacks rigor, says Jay Ezrielev at Elevecon.

  • Series

    Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.

  • Del. Dispatch: Cautionary Tales Of 2 Earnout Effort Breaches

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    The Delaware Court of Chancery's tendency to interpret earnout provisions precisely as written, highlighted in two September rulings that found buyers breached their shareholder obligations when they failed to make reasonable efforts to hit certain product development milestones, demonstrates the paramount importance of precisely wording these agreements, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

  • Takeaways From Novo Nordisk's Fight For Market Exclusivity

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    Generic competitors’ challenge to Novo Nordisk’s patents in hopes of capturing a portion of the rapidly expanding Type 2 diabetes and obesity treatment market highlights the role of abbreviated new drug application litigation, inter partes review and multidistrict litigation in patent defense, says Pedram Sameni at Patexia.

  • Using Primacy And Recency Effects In Opening Statements

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    By understanding and strategically employing the primacy and recency effects in opening statements, attorneys can significantly enhance their persuasive impact, ensuring that their narrative is both compelling and memorable from the outset, says Bill Kanasky at Courtroom Sciences.

  • Secret Service Failures Offer Lessons For Private Sector GCs

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    The Secret Service’s problematic response to two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump this summer provides a crash course for general counsel on how not to handle crisis communications, says Keith Nahigian at Nahigian Strategies.

  • Opinion

    Bill Is Key To Protecting US Economy From Patent Piracy

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    It is critical that Congress pass a recently introduced bill that would protect U.S. investors from intellectual property theft by restoring court-ordered injunctions as the default remedy in patent infringement cases to ensure inventors get the justice they deserve, says Andrei Iancu at Sullivan & Cromwell.

  • Defending AI, Machine Learning Patents In Life Sciences

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    Ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Alice v. CLS Bank, artificial intelligence and machine learning technology remain at risk for Alice challenges, but reviewing recent cases can help life sciences companies avoid common pitfalls and successfully defend their patents, say attorneys at Mintz.

  • Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession

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    About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • From Concept To Capital: 5 Stages Of Evolving IP Needs

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    Companies must understand the shifting intellectual property needs throughout an organization’s life cycle in order to protect innovation, which can be done by fortifying the IP portfolio, expanding and leveraging IP assets, and more, says Keegan Caldwell at Caldwell Law.

  • Allergan Ruling Reinforces Value Of Patent Term Adjustments

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    The Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in Allergan v. MSN, which held that patent term adjustment awards for first-filed, first-issued patents cannot be stripped away by later-issuing child patents that expire earlier, means practitioners must consider the potential impact of any action that might reduce the adjustment amount, say attorneys at Cooley.

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