AbbVie’s Humira ‘Patent Thicket’ Survives Antitrust Appeal (1)

AbbVie Inc.’s thicket of more than 130 patents on Humira, an arthritis treatment and the world’s best-selling drug, doesn’t violate antitrust laws, the Seventh Circuit said Monday, affirming an Illinois federal court’s June 2020 ruling dismissing the lawsuit.

Settlement agreements in the US and in the European Union that permit biosimilar versions of Humira to enter the US market during 2023 “are traditional resolutions of patent litigation,” Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote in an opinion for the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The settlements “neither individually nor collectively” state a claim under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, ...