Suspect claims in Teva's suit against Cipla

The US Federal Trade Commission has warned the Israeli drug firm its patents are wrongful as it sues Cipla aggressively

- Latha Jishnu

PATENT INFRINGEMENT cases are inevitable in the pharma industry. Lawsuits are filed more often than new drugs are discovered and every modification of a drug results in more patents and, predictably, more infringement suits. These take years to be settled, but since the damages awarded by the courts can be astronomical in the US, well-heeled drug majors have an incentive to pursue aggressive litigation. Legal costs don't matter much to the big firms, since their market monopoly allows them to rake in millions, if not billions, of dollars in profit.

Developments in recent months may well alter the course of litigation, and it could perhaps make the drug patent battles less problematic for Indian generics, for whom the US is the most lucrative market. This is the entry of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the knotty question of patents. FTC's primary role is to enforce consumer protection laws aimed at preventing fraud and unfair business practices, but it also enforces federal antitrust laws that "prohibit anticompetitive mergers and other business practices that could lead to higher prices, fewer choices, or less innovation." Possibly because of the Joe Biden Administration's interest in bringing down healthcare costs, FTC is now looking at drug patents from the latter aspect.