AbbVie Wins Preliminary Antitrust Ruling in AndroGel Litigation

AbbVie Inc., facing antitrust litigation over its alleged scheme to clear the market for its testosterone booster AndroGel, can relitigate key decisions against it by two courts in a prior case brought by the Federal Trade Commission, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled.

Judge Harvey Bartle III, who presided over the earlier FTC action, said AbbVie can argue that its lawsuits against another drugmaker were a valid attempt to enforce its patent rights, rather than “sham litigation” aimed at bottlenecking makers of generic AndroGel behind automatic regulatory delays.

Although Bartle previously ruled that the patent suit was a sham, ...