MedImpact gets mixed results in IQVIA trade secrets suit

A California court has given a partial win to MedImpact in a trade secrets suit against US data giant IQVIA over its medical insurance platform.

The US District Court for the Central District of California published an order on Thursday granting a partial judgment in the trade secrets dispute.

The dispute stems from a joint venture between MedImpact and Dimensions Healthcare to help sell MedImpact’s Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) platform services to the Middle East.

A PBM is a third party that either approves or denies drug prescriptions for health plans, Medicare, and employee benefits programs.

While the agreement was in place, MedImpact claimed that Dimensions “secretly developed” a competing platform (referred to as AIMS) using trade secrets and confidential information it had access to.

Prior to terminating the agreement, IQVIA and Dimensions allegedly sold the competing platform to a number of MedImpact’s Middle-East clients, including its largest client Oman Insurance.

In parallel arbitration proceedingsagainst Dimensions at the Dubai International Financial Centre-London Court of International Arbitration, the tribunal ruled that MedImpact’s trade secrets were “protectable intellectual property” and that “Dimensions misappropriated the Trade Secrets in the course of developing AIMS” in April 2021.

Following this ruling, MedImpact sought a partial summary judgment on its lawsuit against IQVIA, which MedImpact had accused of marketing and selling AIMS to a project called NUPCO, in California. MedImpact argued that this lawsuit constituted “re-litigation” in light of the findings at the Dubai court.

However, IQVIA claimed that judicial estoppel bars MedImpact from pursuing this motion and that there was still discussion as to whether IQVIA misappropriated MedImpact’s trade secrets.

In the order handed down on Thursday, judge Gonzalo Curiel ruled that judicial estoppel did not bar the motion, and granted MedImpact’s motion for partial summary judgment based on the Dubai court’s ruling that “MedImpact’s trade secrets used to build AIMS are protectable” and that AIMS uses misappropriated trade secrets.

However, The California court did not rule that this meant IQVIA had misappropriated MedImpact’s trade secrets itself, citing sections of the Dubai judgment that are under seal in its reasoning.

Did you enjoy reading this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox.