Heim, Payne & Chorush LLP Wins Key Ruling in Pharmaceutical Antitrust Lawsuit
Heim, Payne & Chorush LLP partner Russell Chorush and co-counsel recently won a key ruling for his clients in a hotly contested antitrust lawsuit against Illinois-based AbbVie and Paris, France-based Besins Healthcare, two of the world’s leading pharmaceutical drug companies.
Dr. Chorush represents a group of direct purchasers of pharmaceutical drugs who sued the drug companies for wrongly delaying less expensive generic versions of the testosterone drug AndroGel®.
On behalf of the drug purchasers, Dr. Chorush argued that AbbVie and Besins filed an earlier patent infringement lawsuit as part of an anticompetitive scheme that delayed generic versions of the drug from being sold. The Hon. Judge Harvey Bartle III granted summary judgment by finding that the earlier lawsuit was “objectively baseless.” The January 19 ruling establishes as a matter of law one of the elements of sham litigation, thus eliminating the need for Dr. Chorush’s clients to prove that point at trial.