Federal Trade Commission v. Schering-Plough

This case presented the question whether an agreement by a brand-name drug manufacturer (and patent holder) to share a portion of its future profits with a generic manufacturer, in exchange for the generic’s agreement not to market the drug as permitted by federal law, is a violation of the antitrust laws. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that such name-brand/generic agreements were effectively immune from antitrust scrutiny, and the FTC petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review. Public Citizen filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of Rep. Henry Waxman, co-sponsor of the law permitting competition by the generic manufacturers, in support of the FTC’s petition. The Court denied the petition on June 26, 2006. In December 2012, however, the Court granted an FTC petition raising the same issue in a case called FTC v. Actavis, Inc. and ruled in favor of the FTC.