Endo, Impax Escape FTC Suit Over Exclusive Painkiller License

Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. scored a patent win when a federal court in Washington found its exclusive license for the extended-release painkiller Opana ER to Impax Laboratories LLC doesn’t violate federal antitrust law because the Patent Act protects the arrangement.

The court dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s suit against the companies and their corporate parents, Endo International PLC and Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc., in a redacted opinion released Wednesday.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 threw the “uneasy détente” between the Sherman Act, which prohibits anti-competitive conduct, and the Patent Act of 1790 into flux in FTC v. Actavis, Judge Royce ...