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AbbVie Wants Hypertension Drug Antitrust Row Sent to NJ

Law360

November 2, 2020

AbbVie Inc. and other pharmaceutical companies told a New York federal court Friday that lawsuits alleging they paid off competitors to delay generic competition for blood pressure drug Bystolic should be moved to New Jersey, the nation’s “pharmaceutical epicenter,” where most of the defendants and witnesses are based.

In a brief seeking a transfer of venue, the drugmakers said that most of the defendants and all of the witnesses in the five complaints brought by direct purchasers reside in the Garden State.

The complaints allege that AbbVie Inc. and subsidiaries under the Allergan and Forest Laboratories names used reverse payments — an antitrust scheme known as “pay-for-delay” — to convince would-be generic manufacturers to keep cheaper versions off store shelves.

“The District of New Jersey — the U.S. pharmaceutical industry’s epicenter — has the strongest nexus to the subject matter of these Bystolic antitrust complaints,” the brief said.

. . .

Baltimore, Maryland, is represented by Archana Tamoshunas of Taus Cebulash & Landau, and Sharon Kunjumon Robertson and Robert Abraham Braun of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.

Read AbbVie Wants Hypertension Drug Antitrust Row Sent to NJ.