Life Sciences

  • August 08, 2025

    Iowa PBM Law Challengers Seek Wider Block At 8th Circ.

    Employers and benefit plans challenging an Iowa law aiming to limit pharmacy benefit managers' power to set drug prices will seek Eighth Circuit review of a district court judge's decision from July that temporarily blocked parts of the new policy as preempted by federal benefits law.

  • August 08, 2025

    Attys Seek Final OK Of $100M Walgreens Rx Cost Settlement

    An Illinois federal judge should greenlight a $100 million settlement to claims that Walgreens overcharged insured customers for generic prescription drugs, the plaintiffs' attorneys said, asking the judge to wrap up the 8-year-old consumer protection litigation.

  • August 08, 2025

    Stewart Rejects 8 IPR Petitions While Overriding May Denial

    Acting U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Coke Morgan Stewart used her director review powers to grant a petition for inter partes review that she'd previously denied, but otherwise largely supported patent owners in the small batch of recent discretionary denial reviews.

  • August 08, 2025

    Medical Tech Startup Heartflow's Upsized IPO Raises $317M

    Venture-backed medical technology company Heartflow Inc. began trading publicly on Friday after raising nearly $317 million in an upsized initial public offering that exceeded its initial price range, marking the latest in a wave of medtech startups to go public recently.

  • August 08, 2025

    Taxation With Representation: Latham, Alston & Bird, Orrick

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, fiber optic connector systems maker Amphenol Corp. buys CommScope's connectivity and cable solutions business, Blackstone acquires Enverus from private equity firms, investors buy a majority stake in medical device company HistoSonics Inc., and ESPN swaps an equity stake for the National Football League's NFL Network and other intellectual property.

  • August 08, 2025

    UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

    This past week in London has seen the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission target a British investor over a $10 million microcap fraud scheme, Merck Sharp & Dohme move against Halozyme Inc. following a recent clash over its patented cancer medicine, and Birmingham City Council sue a school minibus operator years after ending its contract over DBS check failures. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K. 

  • August 07, 2025

    HHS Wins Another Round In Medicare Drug Negotiation Battle

    A Texas federal court dealt another blow to the pharmaceutical industry Thursday when it ruled in favor of Medicare's Drug Price Negotiation Program, turning away arguments that the program is unconstitutional — the third such decision in two days.

  • August 07, 2025

    BioNTech's Acquisition Of CureVac Ends COVID Vax Case

    CureVac's case alleging Pfizer and BioNTech infringed patents related to messenger RNA technology is set to be dismissed after BioNTech announced in June that it would be acquiring CureVac, canceling what would have been the first-ever trial over COVID-19 vaccine patents in the U.S.

  • August 07, 2025

    BioPharma Co.'s $15M Deal Over Ruined J&J Vaccines OK'd

    A Maryland federal judge on Thursday granted final approval to a $15 million settlement to close out a stockholder derivative suit claiming Emergent BioSolutions Inc. and its top brass made a mint selling stock before their allegedly lax oversight led to the contamination of over 15 million Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine doses.

  • August 07, 2025

    Michigan AG Fights Bid To Pause PBM Price-Fixing Suit

    Michigan's attorney general has said there is no reason to pause her price-fixing suit against pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts and Prime Therapeutics for a pending dismissal motion, urging a federal judge not to put discovery on ice. 

  • August 07, 2025

    Ex-Worker Sues Firm For Bias After Work On CDC Contract

    A former employee sued a management consulting and professional services firm in Georgia federal court Wednesday, alleging he was discriminated against and ultimately fired because of his Islamic faith and PTSD while working on a three-year Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contract.

  • August 07, 2025

    Novartis Faces $291M Trade Secrets Suit From Hedge Fund

    A hedge fund on Thursday accused Novartis, a former investment executive and the executive's longtime friend and business partner of scheming to steal its "innovative hedge fund strategy" after an investment deal between the biotech giant and the hedge fund went south. 

  • August 07, 2025

    Anthem Seeks Exit From Lab's $3.8M Insurance Suit

    Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Connecticut again asked a federal judge to let it out of a lab's $3.8 million suit alleging the company failed to pay 3,000 insurance claims for medical tests, arguing that the lab's second amended complaint didn't make up for the deficiencies that got most of the first one dismissed.

  • August 07, 2025

    2nd Circ. Axes Challenge To Medicare Drug Price Negotiations

    In a published opinion Thursday, the Second Circuit turned away Boehringer Ingelheim's constitutional and administrative challenge to the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, finding that the program is voluntary and it was lawfully implemented under the Inflation Reduction Act.

  • August 07, 2025

    Rising Star: Goodwin's Laura Umbrecht Gulick

    Laura Umbrecht Gulick of Goodwin Procter LLP advised Human Immunology Biosciences and Mariana Oncology in billion-dollar deals with Big Pharma last year, earning her a spot among the life sciences law practitioners under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.

  • August 07, 2025

    Investors Back Cancer Ultrasound Tech Firm At $2.25B Value

    HistoSonics Inc. said Thursday it has secured a majority stake acquisition led by its management team and backed by a syndicate of investors including K5 Global, Bezos Expeditions and Wellington Management, valuing the maker of the Edison Histotripsy System at about $2.25 billion.

  • August 07, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Affirms PTAB Ax Of Bone Fusion Device Patents

    The Federal Circuit on Thursday upheld Patent Trial and Appeal Board rulings that invalidated claims in a pair of Stryker Corp. patents for a surgical implant that a Berkshire Hathaway-owned rival had challenged.

  • August 07, 2025

    NC Biz Court Bulletin: Divorce Dust-Ups And Judicial Rebukes

    Litigation in the North Carolina Business Court is heating up this summer with new complaints centered on fears a former state politician's divorce proceedings will impede his companies' operations and accusations that a climate technology company has failed to pay out a former engineer's ownership interest.

  • August 06, 2025

    6th Circ. Rips 'Stalking Horse' Ploy In Drug Negotiation Suit

    The pharmaceutical industry will feel the sting of a Wednesday loss in a wide-ranging war over Medicare's power to negotiate drug prices, as the Sixth Circuit tossed a suit and accused one major company of utilizing a "stalking horse" to sue in a more favorable forum.

  • August 06, 2025

    Ga. Judges Weigh Birth Defect Ruling in Sterigenics Case

    A group of Georgia residents who alleged they were injured by emissions from a Sterigenics sterilization plant urged the Georgia Court of Appeals on Wednesday to overturn a lower court's grant of partial summary judgment to the company on the issue of whether the plant's emissions caused birth defects.

  • August 06, 2025

    Masimo Drops Founder Joe Kiani From 'Empty Voting' Suit

    Masimo Corp. has agreed to free its founder, Joe Kiani, from the medical technology company's suit alleging he manipulated a shareholder vote through an "empty voting" scheme, pointing to "the interest of judicial efficiency and economy."

  • August 06, 2025

    Indivior Beats Investor Suit Over Opioid Drug Sales Forecasts

    A Virginia federal judge Wednesday tossed an investor class action accusing drugmaker Indivior PLC of overstating the financial prospects of its drugs used to treat opioid use disorders and its ability to forecast such financial projections, finding, among other things, that the complaint's challenged statements are inactionable.

  • August 06, 2025

    Insulin Collusion Needn't Be 'Clever' To Exist, 2nd Circ. Says

    A Second Circuit panel revived safety-net providers' proposed class action claims against Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca on Wednesday that allege the company agreed to limit discount program participation to spike insulin and weight-loss drug costs, with the appeals court rejecting drugmaker arguments that their actions weren't "clever" enough to be collusion.

  • August 06, 2025

    State AGs Want Final OK For $39M Apotex Price-Fixing Deal

    Nearly every state attorney general in the country has asked a Connecticut federal judge to give final approval to a $39.1 million deal to settle claims that drugmaker Apotex Corp. schemed with others to fix prices and allocate markets for generic drugs, noting that the Florida-based company has already made the payment.

  • August 06, 2025

    Judge OKs Addition Of Kenvue, Janssen To J&J Talc MDL

    A New Jersey federal judge has rejected Johnson & Johnson's challenge to cancer patients' bid to add additional corporate defendants to multidistrict federal litigation over its talcum powder products, finding the additions would not be futile.

Expert Analysis

  • Canadian Suit Offers Disclosure Lesson For US Cannabis Cos.

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    A Canadian class action asserting that Aurora Cannabis failed to warn consumers about the risk of developing cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome may spawn copycat filings in the U.S., and is a cautionary tale for cannabis and hemp industries to prioritize risk disclosure, says Ian Stewart at Wilson Elser.

  • Opinion

    IPR Denial In IRhythm Should Not Set A Blanket Rule

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    Though the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's discretionary denial in iRhythm v. Welch Allyn last month raised concerns that mere knowledge of a patent could bar inter partes review institution, a closer look at the facts and reasoning reveals why this case's holdings should not be reflexively applied to all petitioners, says David McCombs at Haynes Boone.

  • What High Court's Tenn. Trans Care Ruling Means Nationally

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, upholding a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors, is fairly limited in scope and closely tailored to the specific language of Tennessee's law, but it may have implications for challenges to similar laws in other states, say attorneys at Hall Render.

  • How Trump's Trade Policies Are Shaping Foreign Investment

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    Five months into the Trump administration, investors are beginning to see the concrete effects of the president’s America First Investment Policy as it presents new opportunities for clearing transactions more quickly, while sustaining risk aversion related to Chinese trade and potentially creating different political risks, say attorneys at Covington.

  • Series

    My Opera And Baseball Careers Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Though participating in opera and the world of professional baseball often pulls me away from the office, my avocations improve my legal career by helping me perform under scrutiny, prioritize team success, and maintain joy and perspective at work, says Adam Unger at Herrick Feinstein.

  • Opinion

    Subject Matter Eligibility Test Should Return To Preemption

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    Subject matter eligibility has posed challenges for patentees due to courts' arbitrary and confusing reasoning, but adopting a two-part preemption test could align the applicant, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the courts, says Manav Das at McDonnell Boehnen.

  • 8 Ways Lawyers Can Protect The Rule Of Law In Their Work

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    Whether they are concerned with judicial independence, regulatory predictability or client confidence, lawyers can take specific meaningful actions on their own when traditional structures are too slow or too compromised to respond, says Angeli Patel at the Berkeley Center of Law and Business.

  • Is SEC Moving Away From Parallel Insider Trading Cases?

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's apparent lack of follow-up in four recent criminal cases of insider trading brought by the Justice Department suggests the SEC may be reconsidering the expense and effort of bringing parallel civil charges for insider trading, say attorneys at Dentons.

  • Rising Enforcement Stakes For Pharma Telehealth Platforms

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    Two pieces of legislation recently introduced in Congress could transform the structure and promotion of telehealth arrangements as legislators increasingly scrutinize direct-to-consumer advertising platforms, potentially paving the way for a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration policy with bipartisan support, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Communicating With Clients

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    Law school curricula often overlook client communication procedures, and those who actively teach this crucial facet of the practice can create exceptional client satisfaction and success, says Patrick Hanson at Wiggam Law.

  • 3 Judicial Approaches To Applying Loper Bright, 1 Year Later

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    In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference in its Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision, a few patterns have emerged in lower courts’ application of the precedent to determine whether agency actions are lawful, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

  • Prepping For SEC's Changing Life Sciences Enforcement

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    By proactively addressing several risk areas, companies in the life sciences sector can position themselves to minimize potential exposure under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's return to back-to-basics enforcement focused on insider trading and fraud, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From US Rep. To Boutique Firm

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    My transition from serving as a member of Congress to becoming a partner at a boutique firm has been remarkably smooth, in part because I never stopped exercising my legal muscles, maintained relationships with my former colleagues and set the right tone at the outset, says Mondaire Jones at Friedman Kaplan.

  • How Providers Can Brace For Drug Pricing Policy Changes

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    Though it's uncertain which provisions of the Trump administration's executive order aimed at addressing prescription drug costs will eventually be implemented, stakeholders can reduce potential negative outcomes by understanding pathways that could be used to effectuate the order's directives, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • Discretionary Denial Rulings May Spur Calls For PTAB Reform

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    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's recent decision in iRhythm Technologies v. Welch Allyn, denying inter partes review based on the patent owner's settled expectations that the patent would not be challenged, could motivate patent holders to seek Patent Trial and Appeal Board reform to preserve patent quality without burdening owners, say attorneys at Dechert.

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