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Pfizer Settles With Purchasers for $94 Million Over Celebrex Pay-for-Delay Deal

December 4, 2017

Pfizer reached a $94 million settlement with a class of direct purchasers over claims it used fraudulent patents to keep generic competition off the market for its anti-inflammatory drug Celebrex.

In 2014, 32 direct purchasers filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia, claiming the company cost them hundreds of millions of dollars by extending its exclusivity period by unlawful means.

The issue dates back to 2008, when the Federal Circuit threw out one of Pfizer’s Celebrex patents on the grounds that it was too similar to two others the company owned, according to the lawsuit. That decision moved up the expiration of its patent exclusivity from December 2015 to May 2014.

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