SRK partner John Macoretta has been appointed to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in the In Re Xyrem (Sodium Oxydate) Antitrust Litigation. This multi-district litigation is overseen by Judge Lucy Koh in the Northern District of California. The Plaintiffs, including SRK’s client, allege that Jazz Pharmaceuticals made baseless patent infringement claims and took baseless administrative actions to block generic competitors for the drug Xyrem, which issued to treat narcolepsy and daytime sleepiness. Plaintiffs allege that Jazz also made anticompetitive “pay for delay” deals with several generic manufacturers, some of whom are defendants, in which the generics agreed to stay off the market for years in exchange for substantial payments from Jazz. Absent this unlawful conduct, generic competition for Xyrem would have appeared as early as January 2018, and consumers and health plans would have been paying much less for generic Xyrem. SRK will work with lead counsel to aggressively prosecute this case, which is currently scheduled for a trial in February 2023.
