A defiant Deborah Platt Majoras defended her agency’s policy of pursuing enforcement action against drugmaker that pay generic rivals not to launch cheap copycat versions of brand-name drugs. The deals, however, can delay lower prices for consumers.

With “billions of dollars” at stake in the payments being made, she says the FTC would continue to push for enforcement action in the area, the commish told an American Bar Association roundtable in Washiington DC today

“At some point we might be forced to say…this is wrong or everyone thinks we’re wrong, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near that point,” Majoras says in response to a question about whether the FTC would have to rethink its position.

The issue has triggered a public dispute between the FTC and Department of Justice over how the increasingly common practice should be addressed under the antitrust laws. The agencies share responsibility for antitrust and competition policy but rarely allow a difference in policy to become public.

Assistant Attorney General Tom Barnett, the DOJ’s antitrust chief, was sitting next to Majoras on the panel. He didn’t speak about the issue. But two days ago at the ABA conference, David Meyer, one of Barnett’s five deputies, expressed sympathy for advice given by the Solicitor General’s office last year to the Supreme Court over another reverse-payment case.

In that case, the Solicitor General told the Supreme Court it shouldn’t hear an appeal in the FTC’s attempted enforcement action against Schering-Plough over allegations it had made reverse payments to a generic drug maker. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case on that advice.

More in The Associated Press.
Background reading…
The Legal Times.[tags]Federal Trade Commission, Generics, Reverse Payments[/tags]