In a rare bit of public squabbling, a senior Justice Department official is disagreeing with recent statements by Federal Trade Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch that payments by brand-name drugmakers to generic rivals should be illegal.

David Meyer, deputy assistant attorney general in DOJ’s antitrust division, says he doesn’t believe that so-called reverse payments should be considered illegal. Asked whether he agrees with Rosch’s comments made before a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee last week, Meyer has this to say: “That is not the Department of Justice’s position.”

Meyer spoke after participating in a panel at the American Bar Association’s spring meeting in Washington. He was speaking alongside three of the other four deputies to Assistant Attorney General Tom Barnett, the antitrust chief at the Justice Department.

Meyer was asked his initial thinking on a case before the Supreme Court involving a class action suit against AstraZeneca and Barr Labs by several groups and individuals who are challenging an agreement between the two companies. AstraZeneca paid Barr $56.9 million to delay its generic version of the breast-cancer drug Tamoxifen, and supplied Barr with Tamoxifen for resale in the US under a royalty arrangement.

Meyer wouldn’tt comment on this case, noting the Supreme Court had asked for the opinion of the Solicitor General’s office, which is part of the Justice Department. But he then refers to an opinion offered to the Supreme Court by the Solicitor General last year in a similar case, where it advised the high court not to take the case.

In that case, the FTC aggressively pursued Schering-Plough over reverse payments. For the Solicitor General to publicly disagree with the FTC in such a fashion is extremely rare. Meyer says he has “sympathy” with the advice given by the Solicitor General in the Schering case.

Further reading….
The Associated Press;
The Legal Times.[tags]AstraZeneca, Barr Laboratories, Generics[/tags]