Life Sciences

  • November 18, 2025

    Ex-FDA Chief Accuses J&J Of Hiding Talc Risks For 50 Years

    A former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration spent a contentious day under cross-examination Tuesday in a Los Angeles bellwether trial over claims that Johnson & Johnson's talc products caused two women's ovarian cancer, accusing the company of hiding the products' health risks for over 50 years.

  • November 18, 2025

    J&J Unit Fights $12M Verdict While Rival Wants More Money

    A Delaware federal jury was wrong when it determined that Johnson & Johnson subsidiary DePuy Synthes should pay RSB Spine $12 million for infringing spinal fusion patents under the doctrine of equivalents, DePuy said Monday.

  • November 18, 2025

    Severe SC Abortion Bill Falters in Committee

    A South Carolina bill that would have further criminalized abortion and subjected patients and doctors to up to 30 years in prison failed to advance out of a Senate committee on Tuesday, with antiabortion committee members raising concerns that the bill went too far.

  • November 18, 2025

    Feds Say Hi-Tech 'Trampled' Trust At Close Of Fraud Trial

    Federal prosecutors closed out a nearly monthlong fraud trial against Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals and its longtime CEO by telling a Georgia jury Tuesday that they "proudly" stood by what defense attorneys for the supplement manufacturer and distributor previously derided as a "paper case."

  • November 18, 2025

    23andMe Seeks OK On Updated $9M Settlement

    23andMe asked a Missouri bankruptcy judge to approve a deal that will modify a settlement with data breach claimants to encompass more claims and pay $9 million, saying doing so will avoid litigation.

  • November 18, 2025

    Merck Wins Final PTAB Fight Against Johns Hopkins

    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board invalidated a cancer treatment patent owned by Johns Hopkins University, marking a full victory on the nine challenges Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC initiated against the university's patents. 

  • November 18, 2025

    Perrigo Sued Over Misstatements On Infant Formula Business

    Perrigo Company PLC faces a shareholder class action alleging the company and its top brass failed to disclose critical issues with infant formula operations that it purchased from Nestle and caused stock prices to drop as the issues came to light.

  • November 18, 2025

    Bristol-Myers Squibb Can Appeal Pension Suit To 2nd Circ.

    Drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and its investment manager can ask the Second Circuit to review a decision from September denying their motion to dismiss a pension dispute for lack of standing, a New York federal judge ruled.

  • November 18, 2025

    CVS Pays $18.2M To Settle False Claims Act Allegations

    CVS Pharmacy Inc. paid the federal government and California a total of $18.2 million to settle allegations it submitted claims for medication reimbursements without verifying that the medications would be for approved diagnoses, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced.

  • November 18, 2025

    1st Circ. May Nix Trump Funding Freeze In 'Weird' Case

    The First Circuit on Tuesday hinted that a federal judge may have been in bounds when blocking the Trump administration from withholding certain funds for states, expressing skepticism that the judge's order was improper or overly broad.

  • November 18, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Voids Allergan's $39M Trial Win Over Eyelash Patent

    The Federal Circuit on Tuesday reversed a $39 million verdict against Sandoz in Allergan's suit accusing it of infringing an eyelash growth drug patent, finding a Colorado federal jury should have found the patent claim at issue invalid for inadequate written description.

  • November 18, 2025

    IBM, Qualcomm Lead Public Cos. In Patented Inventions

    IBM Corp. holds the most patent families of all S&P 100 companies, followed by Qualcomm Inc. and Microsoft Corp., according to an IFI Claims Patent Services report released Tuesday.

  • November 18, 2025

    Purdue's $7.4B Ch. 11 Plan Jibes With New Release Paradigm

    A New York bankruptcy judge gave a bench ruling Tuesday explaining his decision to confirm Purdue's $7.4 billion Chapter 11 plan, which transforms the pharmaceutical giant into a public benefit company, ruling that liability releases fully comply with new restrictions imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

  • November 18, 2025

    Ill. Justices Mull If Permits Override Pollution Exclusions

    Counsel for a sterilization company and its former parent seeking defense costs for hundreds of lawsuits over ethylene oxide emissions at a suburban Chicago facility urged the Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday to find a pollution exclusion in their insurance policy doesn't apply to emissions allowed under a state permit, insisting the policyholders are not polluters under Illinois law or "in the general sense of the word."

  • November 18, 2025

    Lower Costs No Cause For VA To Shirk Trade Act, Judge Says

    A federal judge said the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs can't use the lower cost of drugs from countries not designated under the Trade Agreements Act to reject the higher prices of companies that propose to source them from compliant countries.

  • November 18, 2025

    Agilent Wants Justices To Eye Invalidation Of CRISPR Patents

    Agilent Technologies wants the U.S. Supreme Court to take up its challenge to a Federal Circuit finding that claims in a pair of its patents on the gene-editing tool CRISPR were invalid, arguing the decision conflicts with rules on which side faces the burden of proving invalidity.

  • November 17, 2025

    DC Circ. Mulls If Gov't Can Say No To 340B Rebate Program

    The D.C. Circuit is set to decide "who's the decision-maker" in a fight brought by drugmakers over the federal government's efforts to reshape the way they do drug rebates after spending more than an hour and a half Monday morning hearing out all sides.

  • November 17, 2025

    Advocacy Groups Push 9th Circ. To Uphold Fluoride Ruling

    Advocacy groups that convinced a California federal judge to rule that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "optimal" level for fluoride in drinking water is not protective enough for children, told the Ninth Circuit Monday that there's no reason to disturb the decision.

  • November 17, 2025

    B. Braun Unit Inks $38.5M Deal To End FCA Knee Implant Case

    The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday announced a $38.5 million False Claims Act settlement with a subsidiary of German medical device giant B. Braun Melsungen AG resolving accusations it sold a knee replacement implant allegedly known to fail prematurely after surgery.

  • November 17, 2025

    2nd Circ. Questions Experts' Rejection In Tylenol Autism Suits

    A Second Circuit panel on Monday appeared skeptical of a lower-court order that barred every expert witness set to testify for families who allege that patients taking Tylenol while pregnant can cause autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in their children.

  • November 17, 2025

    Medtronic Can't Nix FCA Claims Despite 1st Circ. Precedent

    A Massachusetts federal judge reconsidered reviving Medtronic's bid to defeat claims it violated the False Claims Act in light of new First Circuit precedent on a causation standard, but ruled that a whistleblower's evidence warranted keeping the claims alive for now.

  • November 17, 2025

    Pa. Supreme Court Snapshot: Skill Games Top Nov. Lineup

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's November session will tackle the legality of the "Pennsylvania Skill" games that have popped up in gas stations and convenience stores, answering the long-simmering question of whether they should be regulated like slot machines. Here are some of the cases the state supreme court will hear during its three-day session in Harrisburg.

  • November 17, 2025

    Cravath, Goodwin Advise On J&J's $3B Cancer Drug Play

    Cravath-advised Johnson & Johnson said Monday it has agreed to pay $3.05 billion in cash for Goodwin-led Halda Therapeutics, a biotech developing a clinical-stage therapy for prostate cancer.

  • November 17, 2025

    Lupin Drops Trade Secrets Case Against Rival

    Pharmaceutical company Lupin Inc. has agreed to drop allegations of stealing trade secrets against Transpire Bio Inc. and former Lupin employee Xian-Ming Zeng, after two other former Lupin employees escaped the suit last month.

  • November 17, 2025

    Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

    The Delaware Chancery Court and Delaware Supreme Court last week had a dense slate of fiduciary duty battles, merger-process challenges, post-bankruptcy fights and a series of cases probing the limits of fraud pleading, credible-basis inspections and board-level disclosure duties.

Expert Analysis

  • A Look At Key 5th Circ. White Collar Rulings So Far This Year

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    In the first half of 2025, the Fifth Circuit has decided numerous cases of particular import to white collar practitioners, which collectively underscore the critical importance of meticulous recordbuilding, procedural compliance and strategic litigation choices at every stage of a case, says Joe Magliolo at Jackson Walker.

  • High Court Cert Spotlights Varying Tests For Federal Removal

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    A recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to review Chevron v. Plaquemines Parish, a case involving the federal officer removal statute, highlights three other recent circuit court decisions raising federal removal questions, and serves as a reminder that defendants are the masters of removal actions, says Varun Aery at Hollingsworth.

  • How To Increase 3rd-Party Preissuance Patent Submissions

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    Attorneys Marian Underweiser and Marc Ehrlich, who helped draft the America Invents Act, discuss changes that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office could potentially implement to facilitate its hopes for increased participation in front-end patent challenges.

  • Trump Air Emissions Carveouts Cloud The Regulatory Picture

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    President Donald Trump's new proclamations temporarily exempting key U.S. industries from air toxics standards, issued under a narrow, rarely-used provision of the Clean Air Act, will likely lead to legal challenges and tighter standards in some states, contributing to further regulatory uncertainty, say attorneys at GableGotwals.

  • Series

    Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

  • What US Medicine Onshoring Means For Indian Life Sciences

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    Despite the Trump administration's latest moves to onshore essential medicine manufacturing, India will likely remain an indispensable component of the U.S. drug supply chain, but Indian manufacturers should prepare for stricter compliance checks, says Jashaswi Ghosh at Holon Law Partners.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Skillful Persuasion

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    In many ways, law school teaches us how to argue, but when the ultimate goal is to get your client what they want, being persuasive through preparation and humility is the more likely key to success, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.

  • FCA Working Group Reboot Signals EHR Compliance Risk

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    The revival of the False Claims Act working group is an aggressive expansion of enforcement efforts by the Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services targeted toward technology-enabled fraud involving electronic health records and other data, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • Litigation Inspiration: How To Respond After A Loss

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    Every litigator loses a case now and then, and the sting of that loss can become a medicine that strengthens or a poison that corrodes, depending on how the attorney responds, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • While On Firmer Ground, Uncertainty Remains For SEC's ALJs

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    The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia's recent opinion in Lemelson v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission affirmed the legitimacy of the SEC's administrative proceedings, but pointedly left unanswered the constitutional merits of tenure protection enjoyed by SEC administrative law judges — potentially the subject of future U.S. Supreme Court review, says Dean Conway at Carlton Fields.

  • FDA's Hasty Policymaking Approach Faces APA Challenges

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    Though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has abandoned its usual notice-and-comment process for implementing new regulatory initiatives, two recent district court decisions make clear that these programs are still susceptible to Administrative Procedure Act challenges, says Rachel Turow at Skadden.

  • Legal Considerations Around Ibogaine As Addiction Therapy

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    Recent funding approval in Texas pertaining to the use of ibogaine for the potential treatment of substance use disorders signals a growing openness to innovative addiction treatments, but also underscores the need for rigorous compliance with state and federal requirements and ethical research standards, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

  • How Patent Attys Can Carefully Integrate LLMs Into Workflows

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    With artificial intelligence-powered tools now being developed specifically for the intellectual property domain, patent practitioners should monitor evolving considerations to ensure that their capabilities are enhanced — rather than diminished — by these resources, say attorneys at McDonnell Boehnen.

  • The Metamorphosis Of The Major Questions Doctrine

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    The so-called major questions doctrine arose as a counterweight to Chevron deference over the past few decades, but invocations of the doctrine have persisted in the year since Chevron was overturned, suggesting it still has a role to play in reining in agency overreach, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • New PTAB Denial Processes Grow More And More Confusing

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    Guidance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office about the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's new workload management and discretionary denial processes has been murky and inconsistent, and has been further muddled by the acting director's seemingly contradictory decisions, say attorneys at Finnegan.

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