Life Sciences

  • March 27, 2026

    Del. Justices Won't Revive Hedge Fund Insider Trading Case

    The Delaware Supreme Court upheld a ruling Friday in favor of hedge fund Armistice Capital, backing the dismissal of a lawsuit accusing the firm of insider trading on information it had obtained in its position as a minority stakeholder of a pharmaceutical company.

  • March 27, 2026

    Hospital System Beats Most Of REIT's $50M Floodwall Suit

    A New York federal judge on Friday mostly tossed a real estate investment trust's $50 million suit against the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. and the NYC Economic Development Corp. over the design of a proposed floodwall for a downtown Manhattan life sciences campus project.

  • March 27, 2026

    Nobel Prize Winners Again Lose Patent Fight Over CRISPR

    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has ruled against a pair of Nobel Prize-winning scientists in a patent dispute over who was the first to invent key aspects of the gene-editing technology CRISPR, siding again with a rival team from the Broad Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  • March 27, 2026

    Skincare Co. Says ITC Ruling Backs Ending PTAB Challenge

    Skin products company Hydrafacial has argued U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires should turn down a rehearing request from rival Sinclair Pharma over Squires' order de-instituting a challenge to Hydrafacial's patent, saying a U.S. International Trade Commission decision upholding the same patent supports the director's move.

  • March 27, 2026

    Sens. Push Bill To Equip VA For Psychedelic Therapies

    A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced legislation to broaden veterans' access to emerging therapies, including psychedelic-assisted treatments, that may be effective in addressing post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues.

  • March 27, 2026

    Biopharma's Brass Hid Anxiety Drug Trial Risks, Investor Says

    Vistagen Therapeutics' current and former top brass have been hit with a derivative shareholder suit in California federal court alleging they overstated its clinical trial for a novel, anti-anxiety drug while hiding unpredictable placebo responses and other known risks, before the phase ultimately failed, causing a stock price collapse. 

  • March 27, 2026

    Biogen Beats Investor Suit Over Dozens Of Drug Claims

    Biogen Inc. and four of its executives escaped a stock drop suit Friday after a Massachusetts federal judge ruled that none of the nearly five dozen statements challenged by investors suggested that the company intentionally misled people buying its stock.

  • March 27, 2026

    Mississippi Gov. Vetoes Medical Marijuana Expansion Bill

    Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has vetoed a bill to expand the state's medical cannabis program to include severely ill patients, while approving another bill to fund a clinical trial into the psychedelic ibogaine.

  • March 27, 2026

    NJ Federal Judge DQs Beasley Allen In J&J Talc MDL

    A New Jersey federal judge has disqualified the Beasley Allen Law Firm from representing hundreds of plaintiffs in sprawling multidistrict litigation over Johnson & Johnson's talc-based baby powder, holding that the firm violated ethics rules by collaborating with former outside counsel for J&J, a ruling the law firm has vowed to appeal.

  • March 27, 2026

    Pharma Co. Says Exec Was Fired Over Conduct, Not Piglets

    The U.S. arm of a Danish pharmaceutical company has told a North Carolina federal judge to throw out a former director's "extraordinary and conspiratorial" lawsuit claiming he was fired for expressing concerns about his employer's use of piglets at an anniversary party.

  • March 27, 2026

    Kirkland-Led Transcend Bought By Otsuka In $1.2B Deal

    Clinical-stage biotechnology company Transcend Therapeutics Inc., led by Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and Goodwin Procter LLP, on Friday announced that it has agreed to be bought by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. in a deal worth up to $1.225 billion.

  • March 26, 2026

    Elanco Beats Investor Suit Over Dog Drug's Reg Challenges

    A Maryland federal judge Thursday dismissed a proposed securities class action against Elanco Animal Health Inc. that claimed the animal pharmaceuticals company misled investors about the safety of a canine dermatitis treatment it was developing and its timeline for the medication's commercial launch.

  • March 26, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Rejects Pharma Co. Refiling Suit To Reset Deadline

    Ascendis Pharma missed its window to invoke a mandatory stay in California federal court based on parallel U.S. International Trade Commission proceedings, and its attempt to reset the patent litigation doesn't change that, the Federal Circuit said Thursday.

  • March 26, 2026

    Legislative Update: Cannabis And Psychedelics Bill Roundup

    Lawmakers at the state and federal level stewarded legislation to rein in kratom and its derivatives, Idaho lawmakers took a stand against a proposal to legalize medical marijuana via ballot initiative, and New York legislators introduced a plan to audit the state's cannabis regulator on an annual basis. Here are the major moves in cannabis and psychedelics legislation from the past week.

  • March 26, 2026

    McDonald Hopkins Must Produce Fraud Warning Docs

    Midwestern law firm McDonald Hopkins LLC must produce email communications in connection with litigation accusing Blue Cross units of a smear campaign against a clinical lab owner, an Ohio federal judge ruled, finding the documents were not protected by work product or attorney-client privilege.

  • March 26, 2026

    Abbott Unit Beats Ex-Worker's Whistleblower Suit At 8th Circ.

    The Eighth Circuit declined Thursday to reinstate a former worker's suit claiming he was fired from an Abbott Laboratories subsidiary for reporting healthcare kickback violations, ruling he couldn't sue under the Minnesota whistleblower law as a Hawaii resident.

  • March 26, 2026

    Pa. Justices Deem Pot Group Unharmed By Abstinence Rule

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday held that a cannabis trade association lacks standing to argue that a local court's policy of regulating medical marijuana use for treatment court participants hurts dispensary businesses, upholding a ruling that the association didn't suffer any harm itself from the policy.

  • March 26, 2026

    9th Circ. Upholds Medtronic Win In Spinal Cord Device Suit

    A Washington man cannot sue medical device maker Medtronic USA Inc. on allegations it sold him a spinal cord implant that malfunctioned causing greater pain, the Ninth Circuit ruled, saying he lacked expert witnesses to support his negligence claims.

  • March 26, 2026

    Regeneron Can't Sink Disability Bias Claims Over Scheduling

    A former Regeneron Pharmaceuticals director can proceed with her lawsuit claiming she was fired for requesting a flexible schedule to care for her daughter, a New York federal judge ruled, saying she'd sufficiently backed up allegations that doing so had violated federal disability bias law.

  • March 25, 2026

    PTAB Was Never '100% Discretionary,' Rep. Issa Tells Squires

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires is exceeding the authority Congress intended to grant him in the America Invents Act for discretionarily denying patent challenges, the U.S. House of Representatives' intellectual property leader said Wednesday.

  • March 25, 2026

    AbbVie, Novartis Sue Wash. Over New 340B Drug-Pricing Law

    Pharmaceutical giants Novartis and AbbVie say a new Washington state law illegally expands drugmakers' obligations to provide deeply discounted medications under the federal government's 340B Drug Pricing Program, according to a pair of legal challenges launched in federal court on Wednesday.

  • March 25, 2026

    Ex-Pharma GC Freed From Trade Secrets Suit Amid Ch. 7 Stay

    A Texas federal judge agreed to dismiss claims against the ex-general counsel of a Houston-based pharmaceutical services company, who was accused of helping build a competing venture using confidential information and of destroying a hard drive containing evidence he had a duty to preserve during litigation.

  • March 25, 2026

    Co.'s Dual Citizenship Doesn't Kill Jurisdiction, 4th Circ. Told

    A medical supply company urged the Fourth Circuit on Wednesday to revive its suit against a U.K. company over COVID-19 test kits, arguing the Chinese citizenship of one of its members doesn't destroy a North Carolina federal judge's ability to hear the case.

  • March 25, 2026

    Mom Tying Abbott Formula To Baby's NEC Takes The Stand

    A plaintiff claiming Abbott Laboratories' preterm baby formula contributed to her infant's development of a serious gut condition told an Illinois jury Wednesday that she wouldn't have allowed her baby to consume the formula had she known it increased the risk of the infection, saying her now-teenage daughter still struggles with medical complications as a result.

  • March 25, 2026

    Fecal Treatment Co. Says Ch. 11 Is Best Option To Sell Assets

    Microbiome treatment developer Finch Therapeutics told a Delaware bankruptcy judge Wednesday that its lack of income or ability to collect on a patent judgment justified its Chapter 11 filing despite a lack of secured debts.

Expert Analysis

  • Lessons From Justices' Split On Major Questions Doctrine

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    The justices' varied opinions in Learning Resources v. Trump, which held the International Emergency Economy Powers Act did not confer the power to impose tariffs, offer a meaningful window into the U.S. Supreme Court's perspective on the major questions doctrine that will likely shape lower courts' approach to executive action challenges, say attorneys at Venable.

  • Drug Wholesaler's DPA Shows Imperfect Efforts Still Count

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    Atlantic Biologicals’ recent deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors for allegedly distributing controlled substances to pill mill pharmacies demonstrates that even subpar cooperation, when combined with genuine remediation and strategic advocacy, can yield outcomes that protect a company's long-term interests, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.

  • Key Takeaways As HRSA Aims To Revive 340B Rebate Pilot

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    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' recent request for feedback on the 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program demonstrates that it intends to correct the model's procedural defects, which is positive news for participating manufacturers, but a setback for covered entities, say attorneys at Manatt.

  • When MDLs Drag, State Courts Can Speed Mass Tort Results

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    Understanding the structural dynamics that can delay resolution in multidistrict litigation is essential to understanding why a state court strategy is sometimes not merely attractive, but necessary for plaintiffs seeking timely and just outcomes, say attorneys at DiCello Levitt.

  • Leveraging MDLs And State Courts In Mass Tort Strategy

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    Multidistrict litigation's quiet drift from a pretrial coordination device to a de facto national court for mass torts poses a strategic question for plaintiffs counsel — whether an MDL will yield timely trials, meaningful accountability and fair value for clients, or whether a state court strategy will be more effective, say attorneys at DiCello Levitt.

  • Unique Issues Facing Brand-Compounder Patent Litigation

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    Recent litigation and potential enforcement action against Hims & Hers Health raise questions about how compounders and branded pharmaceuticals companies would be positioned in patent litigation as compared to generics companies, which would require strategies different from those that would be used in traditional Hatch-Waxman Act litigation, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Series

    Volunteering With Scouts Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Serving as an assistant scoutmaster for my son’s troop reaffirmed several skills and principles crucial to lawyering — from the importance of disconnecting to the value of morality, says Michael Warren at McManis Faulkner.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: In Court, It's About Storytelling

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    Law school provides doctrine, cases and hypotheticals, but when lawyers step into the courtroom, they must learn the importance of clarity, credibility, memorability and preparation — in other words, how to tell simple, effective stories, say Nicholas Steverson and Danielle Trujillo at Wheeler Trigg, and Lisa DeCaro at Courtroom Performance.

  • Pros And Cons Of FDA's Push For Nonprescription Drugs

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    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's recent moves to shift more prescription drugs to over-the-counter status could increase access to important medications, but also bring potential safety risks and other trade-offs for drug companies, say attorneys at Hogan Lovells.

  • How Recent Del. Rulings Clarify M&A Deal Fraud Carveouts

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    Two recent Delaware decisions have provided clarity regarding when a party can or cannot rely on representations made during the course of an M&A transaction, particularly on the scope and enforceability of antireliance provisions, and on representations they knew or should have known were false, says Anthony Boccamazzo at Olshan Frome.

  • High Court's 'Skinny Label' Case May Tackle Wider Questions

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's upcoming decision in Hikma v. Amarin will have important ramifications for broader debates over what defines a generic version of a drug, and the pending case is already altering patent practice, say attorneys at Taft.

  • Aligning Microsoft Tools With NYC Bar AI Recording Guidance

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    The New York City Bar Association’s recently issued formal opinion, providing ethical guidance on artificial intelligence-assisted recording, transcription and summarization, raises immediate questions about data governance and e-discovery for companies that use Microsoft 365 and Copilot, say Staci Kaliner, Martin Tully and John Collins at Redgrave.

  • FDA's Biosimilarity Guidance Holds Uncertain Implications

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    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's new draft guidance aimed at simplifying the biosimilarity demonstration process may not be enough to overcome the barriers that have historically constrained biosimilar competition, and could affect biosimilar access in unexpected ways, say analysts at Analysis Group.

  • Unpacking Key Themes From NY's New Healthcare Strategy

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    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's 2026 State of the State agenda, read together with the state's fiscal year 2027 executive budget, reflect a clear framework to utilize Medicaid as the state's operating platform for healthcare reform, say attorneys at Sheppard.

  • 5 Different AI Systems Raise Distinct Privilege Issues

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    A New York federal court’s recent U.S. v. Heppner decision, holding that a defendant’s use of Claude was not privileged, only addressed one narrow artificial intelligence system, but lawyers must recognize that the spectrum of AI tools raises different confidentiality and privilege questions, says Heidi Nadel at HP.

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