You can file this under
"Finally!"
For the first time since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that so-called pay-to-delay deals may be subject to greater antitrust scrutiny, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit charging drug makers with violating anti-trust laws and hurting consumers in their collective pocketbooks.
"Pay to delay" deals are where big pharmaceutical companies pay money to generic-drug manufacturers to delay producing said generic drug. This allows the brand-name company to continue to reap high-priced medication profits, sans competition, long after their patent has expired. That's clearly illegal, right?
In these deals, a brand-name drug maker settles with a generic rival in exchange for ending patent litigation and launching a copycat medicine at a future date. The pharmaceutical industry contends the deals are not only legal, but actually allow drugs to reach consumers faster than if litigation continued.
Classic corporate logic: we sue you to delay your ability to produce cheaper versions of our expired patent drugs, and then we settle, allowing the delay we have created to be "shortened." Of course "shortened" from what to what is a mystery. It seems like the delays are exactly what Big Pharmaceutical's private doctors' ordered.
Even the Supreme Court decided this was wrong citing "the rule of reason." Which says it all. Except of course the three dissenting votes of reason: Thomas, Scalia, and Roberts (Alito took the old I'm-invisible-and-won't-cast-a-vote-in-this-decision route).
You can see the FTC lawsuit here.