Deals & Corporate Governance

  • December 18, 2024

    State AGs, Generic Cos. Fight Over Price-Fixing Trial Order

    A contingent of state-level enforcers told a Connecticut federal court there is no need to reconsider prioritizing a sprawling generic drug price-fixing case that involves more than 100 medications over a narrower case the drugmakers are asking to have tried first.

  • December 18, 2024

    Yale Eyes Quick Win In $435M Conn. Hospital Purchase Suit

    Yale New Haven Health Services Corp. has asked a Connecticut state court judge for permission to file a summary judgment motion in a feud with Prospect Medical Holdings Inc. over the sale of several hospitals in the state, saying Prospect's "stunning" failure to fund pensions and pay taxes resulted in property liens that breached the $435 million deal.

  • December 18, 2024

    SiteOne Gets $100M To Advance Non-Opioid Pain Treatments

    SiteOne Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on pain treatment, on Wednesday announced that it clinched a Series C funding round after securing $100 million from investors.

  • December 17, 2024

    Sandoz Cuts $275M Deal For More Price-Fixing Claims

    Swiss drugmaker Sandoz said Tuesday it has reached a $275 million settlement to end claims from consumers, insurers and others in the sprawling multidistrict litigation over alleged price-fixing in the generic-drug industry.

  • December 17, 2024

    Bigger, Mature Deals May Define 2025 Healthcare Landscape

    As the healthcare industry returns to normalcy after the peak of the pandemic, look for a repeat of some pre-2020 deal trends.

  • December 16, 2024

    Ginkgo Bioworks Investors Get Final OK Of $17.8M Settlement

    Investors in biotech company Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. have gotten final approval for their $17.75 million deal to end proposed class action claims that the company and its leaders distorted Ginkgo's finances, mischaracterizing certain related party deals, to garner shareholder support for its merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

  • December 16, 2024

    Merger Enforcers End Year On Upswing

    The Biden administration's antitrust enforcers have boasted that one side effect of their aggressive approach to merger enforcement has been helping stop problematic deals from being cut in the first place, but the agencies also scored key court rulings blocking transactions in their final year that could have a more enduring effect.

  • December 16, 2024

    Becton Dickinson To Pay SEC $175M Over Pump Claims

    Becton Dickinson & Co. has agreed to pay $175 million to settle the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's allegations that the medical device manufacturer misled investors about the risks of selling its Alaris infusion pump and overstated its income, the agency announced Monday.

  • December 13, 2024

    Pharma Co. Brass Face Investor Suit Over Drug Trial Probe

    Officers and directors of cancer treatment developer MacroGenics Inc. have been hit with a shareholder derivative action alleging they breached their fiduciary duties after the company announced three study participant deaths were being probed for a potential connection to the company's therapies.

  • December 13, 2024

    What's Left In $400M Skinny Label Row? A Lot, Court Says

    A number of key issues remain live in the $400 million fight between Teva Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline over whether the generic-drug maker induced healthcare providers to infringe the brand-name company's heart drug patent, including the availability of a new trial, a Delaware federal judge has said.

  • December 13, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Kirkland, Davis Polk, Wachtell

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Google and TPG Rise Climate partner with Intersect Power, Gen Digital Inc. acquires MoneyLion Inc., Patient Square Capital acquires Patterson Companies Inc., and the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins sell minority ownership shares to private equity firms.

  • December 12, 2024

    Medicare Could Lose Billions From 'Patent Abuse,' Group Says

    The $6 billion a year Medicare is supposed to save by negotiating drug prices under the Inflation Reduction Act is close to the billions of dollars the government could lose due to "patent abuse" by drugmakers, according to a new report by a consumer interest group.

  • December 11, 2024

    AADI Enlists NY Court To Enforce Cancer Drug Award

    California-based AADI Bioscience Inc. is asking a New York federal court to enforce an arbitral award rejecting a more than $15 million claim asserted by a Hong Kong biopharmaceutical company following a dispute over a deal to market a new cancer drug in China.

  • December 11, 2024

    Kirkland-Led Patient Square Pays $4.1B For Animal Health Co.

    Healthcare-focused private equity firm Patient Square Capital on Wednesday unveiled plans to acquire and take private dental and animal health distributor Patterson Companies Inc. in a $4.1 billion deal built by several law firms.

  • December 10, 2024

    Bristol-Myers Said To Renege On $450M Milestone Promise

    Former security holders of a biotechnology company Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired in 2016 hauled the pharmaceutical giant into Delaware's Court of Chancery on Monday, accusing it of using "patent prosecution sleight of hand" to avoid paying up to $450 million in promised milestone payments related to an autoimmune disorder treatment.

  • December 10, 2024

    Judge Won't Cull EpiPen Antitrust Action Against Mylan

    Mylan Pharmaceuticals didn't get the early exit it sought from litigation accusing it of working with Pfizer to inflate the price of the latter's popular auto-injecting emergency allergy medication EpiPen, as a Kansas federal judge has ruled the case must move on to discovery.

  • December 10, 2024

    Mandarin-Speaking Attys In Demand Amid China Biotech Push

    Amid a shift in licensing deals between Chinese and U.S. biotech companies, Mandarin-speaking attorneys with deep experience in the healthcare space are garnering new attention.

  • December 09, 2024

    3rd Circ. Affirms NLRB's COVID-19 Bonus Pay Order

    The Third Circuit upheld on Monday a National Labor Relations Board decision finding a New Jersey nursing home illegally cut or stopped COVID-19 bonuses for unionized workers, supporting the board's assertion that the bonuses were hazard pay that the company was required to negotiate with the union.

  • December 09, 2024

    NC Attorney General Cans Counterclaims In HCA Hospital Suit

    North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has immunity from counterclaims brought by HCA Healthcare in an enforcement suit centered on the for-profit health network's actions since purchasing an Asheville hospital five years ago, a state Business Court judge has ruled.

  • December 06, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Skadden, Gibson Dunn

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, BlackRock buys HPS Investment Partners, TreeHouse Foods Inc. buys Harris Tea, Aya Healthcare acquires Cross Country Healthcare, and Bruin Capital launches a soccer representation business.

  • December 05, 2024

    Providers' $2.8B BCBS Antitrust Deal Gets Judge's Initial OK

    An Alabama federal judge has given his initial approval for a $2.8 billion settlement inked between Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and a proposed class of medical providers in a more than 12-year-old antitrust case targeting association rules.

  • December 06, 2024

    FINRA Fines Firm $900K Over SPAC Underwriting Fee Issues

    The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined New York-based LifeSci Capital LLC nearly $1 million over claims that it received and failed to disclose unfair and unreasonable fees for an initial public offering it underwrote.

  • December 04, 2024

    Withers IP Partners Hop To Sullivan & Worcester

    Sullivan & Worcester LLP has said the Boston firm picked up a team of five intellectual property lawyers, including two partners, from Withers who have expertise in filing patents and working on deals for biotech startups. 

  • December 04, 2024

    Aya Healthcare Buys Fla. Peer Cross Country In $615M Deal

    Talent software and staffing company Aya Healthcare, steered by Procopio, will acquire Davis Polk & Wardwell-guided Cross Country Healthcare in an $18.61-per-share cash transaction worth roughly $615 million that will take the company private, according to a Wednesday statement.

  • December 04, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Judge Condemns 'Nonsense' Law In Antibody Fight

    U.S. Circuit Judge Todd Hughes called the Federal Circuit's case law on interpreting preambles in patent claims "nonsense" on Wednesday, expressing frustration as a panel tried to work through whether Xencor Inc.'s antibody patent application was too broad.

Expert Analysis

  • Negotiating AI-Life Sciences Partnerships To Minimize IP Risk

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    When life sciences companies and AI companies form partnerships to foster innovation, the parties should align interests as well as mitigate intellectual property risks by strategically identifying and addressing the unique AI-related legal issues, such as training data, AI model and output, say attorneys at Finnegan.

  • How To Recognize And Recover From Lawyer Loneliness

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    Law can be one of the loneliest professions, but there are practical steps that attorneys and their managers can take to help themselves and their peers improve their emotional health, strengthen their social bonds and protect their performance, says psychologist and attorney Traci Cipriano.

  • Litigation Funding Disclosure Should Be Mandatory

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    Despite the Appellate Rules Committee's recent deferral of the issue of requiring third-party litigation funding disclosure, such a mandate is necessary to ensure the even-handed administration of justice across all cases, says David Levitt at Hinshaw.

  • Recalling USWNT's Legal PR Playbook Amid World Cup Bid

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    As the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team strives to take home another World Cup trophy, their 2022 pay equity settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation serves as a good reminder that winning in the court of public opinion can be more powerful than a victory inside the courtroom, says Hector Valle at Vianovo.

  • Revalidation Unlikely To End NIH Tech-Deal Bid Protest Saga

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    Recent U.S. Government Accountability Office decisions requiring the National Institutes of Health to again rework a $50 billion information technology contract probably won't result in an award for many protesters, and the corrective action will likely be followed by more protests, say James Tucker and Damien Specht at MoFo.

  • Colorado Antitrust Reform Carries Broad State Impact

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    Colorado recently became the latest state to update and expand its antitrust laws, and the new act may significantly affect enforcement and private litigation, particularly when it comes to workers and consumers, says Diane Hazel at Foley & Lardner.

  • Parsing Through The FTC's Proposed Health Privacy Updates

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    The Federal Trade Commission's recently proposed updates to its Health Breach Notification Rule contain subtle but significant changes to key terms that help modernize the agency's health app regulation and provide stakeholders an important opportunity to help shape the future of virtual health care, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Regulating AI: An Overview Of Federal Efforts

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    The U.S. has been carefully managing a national policy and regulatory ecosystem toward artificial intelligence, but as AI technology continues to expand into our everyday lives, so too has its risks and the need for regulation, says Jennifer Maisel at Rothwell Figg.

  • Merger Guidelines Should Provide For Competition Trustees

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    Following the U.S. antitrust agencies' release of draft merger guidelines, retired U.S. Court of Federal Claims Chief Judge Susan Braden suggests a court-appointed competition trustee would help ensure U.S. competition without impairing economic prosperity.

  • Indivior Ruling May Affect Rebate Wall Litigation

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    A New Jersey federal court's recent decision in Indivior v. Alvogen, in which a claim that an alleged rebate wall anti-competitively blocked generic competition survived summary judgment, may provide a blueprint for successfully challenging other drug rebating practices, say Peter Herrick and Monsura Sirajee at O'Melveny.

  • Merger Guidelines' Broad Tack Ignores Recent Precedent

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    The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission's new proposed merger guidelines are consistent with the Biden administration's expansive approach to antitrust enforcement, but they fail to grapple meaningfully with much of modern economic precedent and court decisions requiring greater agency rigor in merger analysis, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • Mallory Gives Plaintiffs A Better Shot At Justice

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    Critics of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern claim it opens the door to litigation tourism, but the ruling simply gives plaintiffs more options — enabling them to seek justice against major corporations in the best possible court, say Rayna Kessler and Ethan Seidenberg at Robins Kaplan.

  • Courts Can Overturn Deficient State Regulations, Too

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    While suits challenging federal regulations have become commonplace, such cases against state agencies are virtually nonexistent, but many states have provisions that allow litigants to bring suit for regulations with inadequate cost-benefit analyses, says Reeve Bull at the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management.