WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) — The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced May 24 that its antitrust complaint against generic pharmaceutical company Impax Laboratories Inc. has been dismissed by Chief Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell.
The FTC filed its complaint in January 2017, stating that Impax and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. illegally agreed to a deal in June 2010 in which Impax would not market a generic version of Endo’s Opana ER until January 2013. Endo allegedly paid Impax more than $112 million for its compliance.
Chappell, however, found that the FTC’s complaint counsel failed to provide sufficient proof that the agreement between the two companies violated Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
“The magnitude and extent of any anticompetitive harm is largely theoretical, based on an inference that, absent the Challenged Agreement, Impax’s entry date, and therefore generic competition, would have been earlier than January 2013,” Chappell wrote in his decision. “The evidence shows that such earlier entry was unlikely.”
Chappell’s decision was an Initial Decision, and it will become final if the FTC does not file an Appeal Brief within 30 days.