Miami police officers sue Allergan over tribe patent deal
A group of Miami police officers has filed a competition lawsuit on behalf of “potentially millions” of consumers over Allergan’s $13.75 million patent deal with the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe.
The Fraternal Order of Police, Miami Lodge 20, Insurance Trust Fund (FOP Miami) made several allegations against the pharmaceutical company, including wrongful patent enforcement and a “conspiracy to monopolise and contract in restraint of trade”.
It filed the suit (pdf) on Monday, November 27 at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division.
Allergan paid the tribe to take on the company’s patents covering Restasis (cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion), a dry eye treatment. The tribe has since sought to dismiss inter partes reviews (IPRs) filed against the patents based on its sovereign immunity.
According to the complaint, FOP Miami is a governmental plan established and funded through contributions from the City of Miami and the plan’s members, who are current and retired officers from the City of Miami Police Department and their dependents.
FOP Miami, which claimed the class could include millions of consumers and thousands of third-party payors, said Allergan has earned an extra $3.9 billion in “monopolistic sales” since May 17, 2014.
This is when generic Restasis would have been available in the absence of Allergan’s unlawful actions, the plaintiff claimed, adding that the class would have purchased the less expensive version.
The complaint said a patent owner may not obtain additional, later-expiring patents by misrepresenting facts to the US Patent and Trademark Office, sue competitors for alleged infringement of such bogus patents, file baseless petitions with the US Food and Drug Administration, and prolong its monopoly by transferring ownership of the invalid patents to a sovereign Native American tribe “in order to destroy jurisdiction over those patents”.
“Each of these actions, independently and collectively, delays generic competition and violates the antitrust laws; Allergan engaged in each of these illegal acts in order to illegally extend its Restasis monopoly,” FOP Miami said.
On the sovereign immunity defence filed before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, the plaintiff said that “no objectively reasonable litigant could expect these shenanigans” to succeed.
FOP Miami wants damages for itself and the proposed class of purchasers that bought Restasis indirectly from Allergan at “supracompetitive prices”.
LSIPR has been closely covering the deal between Allergan and the tribe, as well its fallout. Most recently, on November 7, we reported on a hearing by a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee that was called after Allergan announced the deal with the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe.
In other developments, a US judge overseeing an infringement lawsuit brought by Allergan against Teva and others invalidated several of the claims at the centre of the controversy.
Circuit Judge William Bryson also said that the deal could spell the end for the IPR.
An Allergan spokesperson declined to comment.
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