US Supreme Court backs Barr in tamoxifen antitrust suit

The US Supreme Court has denied the plaintiff's (consumers and/or third party payers) petitions for review of the Second Circuit's decision in US firm Barr Pharmaceuticals' favor in the tamoxifen citrate antitrust law suits. The Court's ruling ends the antitrust litigation over the 1993 settlement of patent litigation between Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca and Barr.

On November 2, 2005, a three-member panel of circuit judges of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the May 2003 dismissal by US District Judge Leo Glasser of all of the plaintiffs' claims against Barr and AstraZeneca in the case. The ruling affirmed that the patent litigation settlement deal between Barr and AstraZeneca did not violate federal antitrust statutes or the antitrust and/or consumer protection statutes of various states.

"We have always believed that our patent challenge settlement related to tamoxifen citrate was pro-consumer and pro-competitive, and this has now been definitively confirmed by the courts," said Bruce Downey, Barr's chief executive.