Deals & Corporate Governance
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January 27, 2025
Obesity-Focused Metsera Leads Biotech Firms Eyeing IPOs
Obesity-focused drug developer Metsera launched plans on Monday for an estimated $275 million initial public offering, joined by kidney-disease focused Maze Therapeutics, both of which plan to tap the markets this week under combined guidance of four law firms.
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January 27, 2025
Novo Nordisk's Obesity Drug Study Allegedly Duped Investors
Novo Nordisk was hit with a proposed securities class action in New Jersey federal court Friday, accusing the drugmaker of duping investors about its new weight loss drug CagriSema by failing to disclose that obesity patients were taking different dosages in a clinical study, which allegedly skewed results.
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January 27, 2025
PureHealth Nabs Majority Stake In HHG In $2.3B Deal
Middle Eastern healthcare group PureHealth Holding PJSC on Monday announced plans to buy a majority stake in Freek and Cypriot healthcare provider Hellenic Healthcare Group in a deal that values HHG at $2.3 billion.
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January 24, 2025
Biotech Co. Defends Antitrust Counterclaims Against Rival
Biotech company Zymo Research Corp. is defending its claims that German diagnostic competitor Qiagen GmbH's infringement suit is nothing more than an attempt to discredit a competitor, saying Zymo offered to prove it wasn't ripping off Qiagen's tech, only to have Qiagen bury "its head in the sand" and file suit.
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January 23, 2025
Ex-J&J Exec Accused Of File Theft Has Died, Court Told
A former competitive strategy director for Johnson & Johnson accused of stealing confidential files when he left the company to work for Pfizer has died, according to a court filing.
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January 22, 2025
10th Circ. Affirms Toss Of Surgical Assistants' Antitrust Suit
The Tenth Circuit on Tuesday refused to revive an antitrust lawsuit against a national surgical certification board accused of monopolizing a surgical assistants and technicians accreditation and certification market, saying in a published opinion that the Association of Surgical Assistants' failure to establish a relevant market doomed its antitrust claims.
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January 22, 2025
Fla. Court Proposes $19M In Damages In Spinal Products Suit
A Florida federal judge has recommended that the principal of spine medical equipment companies pay $19.3 million in damages after allegedly breaching an agreement and forming a direct competitor to a business he previously contracted with for exclusive distribution of its products.
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January 22, 2025
Vanda Loses Takings Clause Arguments In Trade Secret Fight
A Court of Federal Claims judge has held that specifications on how fast Vanda Pharmaceuticals' drugs dissolve do not count as property interest under the Fifth Amendment, handing a loss to the pharmaceutical company in its trade secrets case against the federal government.
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January 22, 2025
Cooley-Led Insulin Device Maker Preps $113M IPO
Insulin delivery system maker Beta Bionics on Wednesday announced the terms for its initial public offering, planning to raise $113 million.
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January 21, 2025
Cautious Optimism Permeates JPM Health Conference 2025
Law360 Healthcare Authority talked with a dozen attorneys across seven firms during this year's J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference to ask what they were hearing and how that could affect dealmaking for the rest of the year. Here's what we learned.
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January 21, 2025
Calif. Appeals Court Reinstates Nurses' Wage Suit
A California appeals court upended a hospital operator's win on some claims in nurses' wage and hour lawsuit, saying the nurses put forward enough evidence to show their employer's rounding policy resulted in their underpayment.
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January 17, 2025
Law360 Names Practice Groups Of The Year
Law360 would like to congratulate the winners of its Practice Groups of the Year awards for 2024, which honor the attorney teams behind litigation wins and significant transaction work that resonated throughout the legal industry this past year.
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January 17, 2025
Law360 Names Firms Of The Year
Eight law firms have earned spots as Law360's Firms of the Year, with 54 Practice Group of the Year awards among them, steering some of the largest deals of 2024 and securing high-profile litigation wins, including at the U.S. Supreme Court.
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January 17, 2025
PE Firm Resolves FTC's Antitrust Anesthesia Roll-Up Case
Private equity firm Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe agreed to limit its involvement, entanglement and ownership rights with its portfolio company U.S. Anesthesia Partners Inc. to resolve allegations they engaged in a "roll-up" scheme to buy anesthesiology practices in Texas and drive up costs, the Federal Trade Commission said Friday.
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January 17, 2025
Crown Labs Tops Rival Bid In Quest To Buy Biotech Revance
Skincare product company Crown Laboratories Inc. has offered to raise its all-cash bid to buy healthcare biotech company Revance Therapeutics Inc. from $3.10 per share to $3.65 per share as it seeks to beat out a surprise bid from a Revance shareholder, according to a securities filing on Friday.Â
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January 16, 2025
EpiPen Direct Buyers, Mylan Ink $75M Antitrust Deal
Mylan Pharmaceuticals has agreed to pay $73.5 million to resolve claims it worked with Pfizer to inflate the price of the latter's popular auto-injecting emergency allergy medication EpiPen, a proposed class of direct purchasers told a Kansas federal judge Wednesday, bringing the total settlement to $123.5 million.
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January 15, 2025
Del. Justices Mull 'Reasonable' Effort Duty In Drug Biz Deal
An attorney for former stockholders of Ception Therapeutics Inc. told Delaware's top court on Wednesday that a now-retired vice chancellor "asked the wrong question" in dismissing a suit alleging breaches of an agreement to use commercially reasonable efforts before abandoning a new drug prospect.
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January 14, 2025
Healthcare Deals To Be More 'Rational' In 2025, Panel Says
Healthcare deals will become more "rational" this year as buyers and sellers find more middle ground on valuations, experts said, potentially shaping a more optimistic landscape for transactions in the space.
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January 14, 2025
Fed. Circ. Judge Asks What's The Rush In Eylea Biosimilar Case
Counsel for Amgen and a Federal Circuit judge got into a back-and-forth Tuesday concerning the pace of an appeal over a denied injunction on Regeneron's biosimilar of Eylea, with the judge wondering why the attorney was so eager to move things along.
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January 14, 2025
Chancery Hits Co. With $2.9M Atty Fee Bill As Sanction
A California medical device molding company that sought millions from a merger partner for breaches of contract in Delaware's Court of Chancery came away Tuesday with awards of $104,000 for its claims and $2.9 million in attorney fees as a sanction for contempt and spoliation by Symbient Product Development LLC founder Scott Castanon.
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January 14, 2025
JPM Health Conference Days 1-2: What You Need To Know
The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference kicked off in San Francisco, with surprisingly good weather and a handful of blockbuster announcements to open the industry's premier deals conference.
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January 14, 2025
MedQuest Adds Health System In-House Vet As Top Atty
MedQuest Associates, an operator of outpatient diagnostic imaging facilities across the U.S., is welcoming a new chief legal officer who brings nearly three decades of experience working with healthcare organizations.
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January 13, 2025
Meet The Attorneys Advising Prospect Medical In Ch. 11
A team of attorneys from Sidley Austin LLP is representing California-based hospital operator Prospect Medical Holdings Inc. in its Chapter 11 case in Texas, as the company aims to sell several facilities while refocusing on operations in its home state.Â
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January 13, 2025
Proskauer Faces Revived DQ Bid In NJ Hospital Antitrust Fight
CarePoint Health is once again pushing to have Proskauer Rose LLP disqualified as counsel for healthcare network RWJBarnabas Health Inc. in an antitrust lawsuit in New Jersey federal court, asserting that a magistrate judge erred in previously denying its request.
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January 13, 2025
Cravath-Led J&J Paying $14.6B For Neuropsychiatric Drug Co.
Johnson & Johnson said Monday it has agreed to purchase Intra-Cellular Therapies Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on therapies for neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders, for approximately $14.6 billion.
Expert Analysis
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Indivior Ruling May Affect Rebate Wall Litigation
A New Jersey federal court's recent decision in Indivior v. Alvogen, in which a claim that an alleged rebate wall anti-competitively blocked generic competition survived summary judgment, may provide a blueprint for successfully challenging other drug rebating practices, say Peter Herrick and Monsura Sirajee at O'Melveny.
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Merger Guidelines' Broad Tack Ignores Recent Precedent
The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission's new proposed merger guidelines are consistent with the Biden administration's expansive approach to antitrust enforcement, but they fail to grapple meaningfully with much of modern economic precedent and court decisions requiring greater agency rigor in merger analysis, say attorneys at Freshfields.
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Mallory Gives Plaintiffs A Better Shot At Justice
Critics of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern claim it opens the door to litigation tourism, but the ruling simply gives plaintiffs more options — enabling them to seek justice against major corporations in the best possible court, say Rayna Kessler and Ethan Seidenberg at Robins Kaplan.
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Courts Can Overturn Deficient State Regulations, Too
While suits challenging federal regulations have become commonplace, such cases against state agencies are virtually nonexistent, but many states have provisions that allow litigants to bring suit for regulations with inadequate cost-benefit analyses, says Reeve Bull at the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management.
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Tales From The Trenches Of Remote Depositions
As practitioners continue to conduct depositions remotely in the post-pandemic world, these virtual environments are rife with opportunities for improper behavior such as witness coaching, scripted testimony and a general lack of civility — but there are methods to prevent and combat these behaviors, say Jennifer Gibbs and Bennett Moss at Zelle.
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What's New In The DOJ-FTC Proposed Merger Guidelines
While this week's merger guidelines proposal from the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice initially appears to reflect well-established principles of antitrust law, a closer examination reveals a stark departure from the last 40 years of antitrust enforcement, say attorneys at Skadden.
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Tide May Be Turning On Texas Two-Step Bankruptcy Strategy
Recent developments in several high-profile bankruptcy cases suggest that the use of the Texas Two-Step to shield solvent companies from tort claims may be falling out of favor, but until the U.S. Supreme Court hears one of these cases the strategy will remain divisive and the subject of increased scrutiny, say attorneys at Rivkin Radler.
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Ways To Balance ESG Initiatives And Antitrust Risks
Since ESG policies often concern systemic issues that require collective action for meaningful results, there are potential antitrust issues that require safeguards to help mitigate risk, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.
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Level Up Lawyers' Business Development With Gamification
With employee engagement at a 10-year low in the U.S., there are several gamification techniques marketing and business development teams at law firms can use to make generating new clients and matters more appealing to lawyers, says Heather McCullough at Society 54.
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Mallory Ruling Leaves Personal Jurisdiction Deeply Unsettled
In Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway, a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court recently rolled back key aspects of its 2017 opinion in Daimler AG v. Bauman that limited personal jurisdiction, leaving as many questions for businesses as it answers, say John Cerreta and James Rotondo at Day Pitney.
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Recent Provider Relief Fund Audits Are Just The Beginning
Though the Health Resources and Services Administration's initial audits of the Provider Relief Fund program appear to be limited in scope, fund recipients should prepare for additional oversight, scrutiny and disallowances as the HRSA ramps up its efforts, say Brian Lee and Christopher Frisina at Alston & Bird.
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5 Ways Firms Can Rethink Office Design In A Hybrid World
As workplaces across the country adapt to flexible work, law firms must prioritize individuality, amenities and technology in office design, says Kristin Cerutti at Nelson Worldwide.
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Bar Score Is Best Hiring Metric Post-Affirmative Action
After the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling striking down affirmative action admissions policies, law firms looking to foster diversity in hiring should view an applicant's Multistate Bar Examination score as the best metric of legal ability — over law school name or GPA, says attorney Alice Griffin.