Healthcare

The maker of the popular Invisalign dental aligners may soon face a cross-claim from competitor SmileDirectClub, which it sued for allegedly misleading consumers about the cost and efficacy of its direct-to-consumer teeth alignment kits. 

The Full Federal Court won’t give Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis the chance to appeal a ruling that threw out three of its four experts in a patent case against generic drug maker Pharmacor.

An additional 1,200 women who were implanted with defective pelvic mesh devices will be eligible for compensation after Johnson & Johnson unit Ethicon agreed that findings in an earlier class action which it unsuccessfully fought all the way to the High Court should apply to a follow-on class action.

A judge has declined to award costs against a group of nurses who recently dropped their Fair Work lawsuit against Monash Health, saying the case was not “doomed to fail” and noting the “extremity” of the Victorian government’s vaccine mandate for workers.

The competition regulator has proposed to deny authorisation for a patent settlement that sought to permit early entry of generic drugs. Whether the companies involved will be able to quell the ACCC’s concerns remains to be seen, but what is clear is that future authorisation applications will contend with significant forensic challenges, writes Corrs Chambers Westgarth’s Odette Gourley, Richard Flitcroft, David Fixler and Ian Reynolds.

The Federal Court has signed off on a settlement between two US biotech companies that ends a dispute over the companies’ ‘Access’ trade marks in Australia.

Novartis wants to appeal a ruling in its dispute with generic drug maker Pharmacor over patents for its multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya that tossed three of its four experts out of an upcoming so-called hot tub.

A judge has questioned whether the lead applicant in a class action over sleep apnea machines with alleged safety defects was “appropriately resourced” to run the case against health tech giant Philips.

The ACCC has refused to authorise a patent settlement and license agreement between Bristol-Myers Squibb unit Celgene and two generic drug makers who sued to invalidate the patents for its blockbuster cancer drug Revlimid, saying it could distort competition between generic drug makers.

The Full Court has upheld two judgments that shortened patent term extensions granted to Merck Sharpe & Dohme and Ono Pharmaceuticals, finding the extension regime cannot be construed as achieving a “commercial outcome for a patentee”.