Federal Circuit Reverses Block on Avadel’s Sleep Drug Trials

The Federal Circuit reversed a district judge’s order blocking specialty drugmaker Avadel CNS Pharmaceuticals LLC from conducting clinical trials of a narcolepsy drug that would compete with a Jazz Pharmaceuticals Inc. product.

The injunction, which separately barred Avadel from seeking US Food and Drug Administration approval to market Lumryz as a treatment for ideopathic hypersomnia, was “unlawfully overbroad” to the extent it sought to restrict drug trials, Judge Alan D. Lourie wrote in a precedential opinion issued Tuesday by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Lourie reversed a Delaware district court’s order granting Jazz the injunction, which ...