Gilead to face HIV antitrust claims
Drugmakers including Gilead Sciences must face antitrust claims related to HIV drugs, after the US District Court for the District of Florida on Monday, March 3 refused to fully throw out a class-action suit implicating the company.
Gilead, along with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Japan Tobacco, and Johnson & Johnson, have been accused of restricting competition in the HIV drug market, which is dominated by Gilead.
Gilead had looked to have the antitrust claims against it thrown out, but will now have to face at least some of them after a mixed ruling from the Florida court.
The suit was filed in January by MSP Recovery Claims, which alleges that Gilead agreed anti-competitive deals with its co-defendants to keep generic versions of its HIV drug combinations off the market.
“Through an array of anticompetitive practices—including horizontal agreements constituting per se violations of the antitrust laws—Gilead acquired and maintained a monopoly for drugs that comprise the modern HIV treatment regimen known as ‘combination antiretroviral therapy’ (cART),” the original complaint alleged.
Part of the defendants’ case included their argument that the deals were valid under the doctrine of ancillary restraints, an element of US antitrust law. According to the defendants: “where competitors enter into a joint venture (or other business collaboration), it is reasonable to have a provision barring members of the joint venture from competing with the joint venture—or else there would be no incentive to enter into the joint venture in the first place.”
The defendants therefore argued that the deals were procompetitive, in that they incentivised bringing a new product to market.
In response, the court said it followed the principle that “horizontal agreements” between competitors at the same level of the market, such as the defendants, were suspect from an antitrust perspective.
The court rejected what it called the defendants’ efforts to prove that deals of that nature were “per se valid” under competition law.
The deal was not a complete victory for the plaintiffs, as several other motions to dismiss different antitrust charges were variously denied and granted in part.
For example, claims based on the Gilead/Japan Tobacco agreement were dismissed with prejudice.
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