Regeneron Secures $407M Jury Verdict in Major Antitrust Win that Earns American Lawyer Litigators of the Week Top Honors

Read American Lawyer’s Litigators of the Week story about this case.

• In a case closely watched by the pharmaceutical industry, an Orrick antitrust team co-counseled this week to help secure a $407 million jury verdict in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware for our client Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. This verdict will ensure that patients continue to have access to Regeneron’s lifesaving, cholesterol-reducing drug Praluent.
• In this Q&A, Eric and his co-counsel discuss the stakes at the heart of this case for American consumers and innovators bringing new medicines to market and how they crafted the arguments that prevailed at trial.
• Regeneron brought the suit against Amgen in 2022 after Amgen launched a cross-therapeutic bundling scheme to force the largest pharmacy benefit managers to adopt its cardiovascular drug Repatha and exclude Praluent. The scheme included a multi-product bundle with Enbrel and Otezla, unrelated anti-inflammatory drugs that do not treat the heart conditions that Repatha and Praluent address.
• After a seven-day trial, a seven-person jury found that Amgen violated multiple antitrust laws, including the Clayton Act and Sherman Act as well as state laws in New York, California and Delaware.
• The jury awarded Regeneron $135.6 million in compensatory damages (automatically trebled under antitrust laws) and $271.2 million in punitive damages. The verdict, which included a finding of tortious interference with prospective business relations, amounted to a win on 10 of 11 counts for Regeneron.

“I think there are lessons for plaintiffs and defendants alike,” Eric told AmLaw. “First, Regeneron was willing to be a plaintiff, which requires a company to run the table and overcome every hurdle put up by a defendant that was well-represented by Gibson Dunn. Regeneron also had the conviction that the truth and the law was on its side to put years of hard work and investment into the hands of a handful of citizens and trust that a jury and our system would get it right. It was a good bet.”

“Then, it came down to tactics. Fight hard for text messages. Push for depositions of “apex” witnesses because they are often the source of commercial strategy. If you have to go to court to get this key information, do it! And be creative: Don’t be afraid of pursuing creative and non-traditional claims like federal below-cost pricing or other state law claims that can provide relief and remedies where traditional antitrust claims and damages calculations fail to capture the full extent of the harm,” Eric added.

The Orrick team was led by the firm’s head of Global Antitrust Litigation Eric Hochstadt and included Allen Davis, Anne Corbett and Erin Tison. The Orrick team co-counseled with White & Case, Weil, and Wilks Law.