Paxil

Paxil® (Paroxetine Hydrochloride) Settlement

Nichols v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., Case No. 00-cv-6222 (E.D. Pa).

WW is willing to take risks and help mold the law to what it should be, not what it is. The Paxil case is one example. In that case, plaintiffs alleged that several of Defendants' patents for paroxetine hydrochloride were improperly listed in the Orange Book and that Defendants' patent infringement litigation against various generic drug manufacturers was "sham" litigation. Plaintiffs alleged that these actions kept generic versions of Paxil® off the market. Paxil is a prescription drug manufactured and sold by GlaxoSmithKline for the treatment of, among other things, depression and anxiety.

Novel questions of law and difficult issues of proof made the Paxil case a very difficult antitrust case to pursue. Instead of a traditional price-fixing case known among the antitrust bar as "hardcore cartel" cases, this case involved a Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") investigation with regard to Paxil, which was closed without further FTC action. Thus, Ken Wexler, as one of three co-lead counsel, had to build the Paxil case from the ground up. Not only did the case have to be developed from scratch, it is believed to be one of the first, if not the first, to allege misuse of patents to delay generic competition in a pharmaceutical market brought under Section 2 of the Sherman Act rather than Section 1. Despite these hurdles, and after extensive discovery and investigation, the case settled for $65 million in cash. The favorable response to this hard-fought settlement was overwhelming ---- over 60,000 consumers filed claims.