Pennsylvania Court Shoots Down J&J’s Motion to Dismiss Pfizer’s Antitrust Lawsuit

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied Johnson & Johnson’s motion to dismiss Pfizer’s antitrust litigation, which alleges that J&J engaged in anticompetitive practices for its biologic Remicade (infliximab) to block biosimilars.

In its motion to dismiss, J&J claimed other factors were to blame for Pfizer’s inability to be competitive, such as a lack of comfort and awareness of biosimilars on behalf of providers and Inflectra’s lack of “interchangeability” status versus Remicade.

But Judge J. Joyner ruled J&J’s arguments were not sufficient to dismiss the lawsuit, explaining that “the existence of possible alternative causes of an antitrust injury is not a valid ground for dismissal.”