In October 2017 Senator McCaskill vowed to disallow the Mohawks’s from using their sovereign immunity be used to thwart a patent trade office ruling:
The tete-a-tete between Allergan (AGN) and lawmakers over its patent sale to St. Regis Mohawks continues. Thursday Senator Claire McCaskill drafted a bill disallowing tribal sovereign immunity to be used to block U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review of patents:
“Any thinking person would look at what this company did and say, ‘That should be illegal.’ Well, I agree,” McCaskill said in a statement. “Congress never imagined tribes would allow themselves to be used by pharmaceutical companies to avoid challenges to patents, and this bill will shut the practice down before others follow suit.”
Last month Allergan transferred patents for Restasis, its top-selling drug indicated to help increase tear production, to St. Regis; the transfer was designed to protect them against an inter partes review (“IPR”). Allergan is paying St. Regis an up front fee and $15 million in annual royalties. It also keeps the economics from Restasis which generates over $1 billion in annual revenue. The Restasis patents are also being challenged in federal court by Mylan (MYL), Teva (TEVA) and Pfizer (PFE). Allergan claims the patent transfer is merely to avoid the “double jeopardy” of a federal court hearing and an IPR.
Along with Susan Collins, Senator McCaskill headed a Senate Special Committee on Aging that studied drug price-gouging and what to do about it. The committee released a 130 page report titled Sudden Price Spikes In Off-Patent Prescription. The report focused on the business practices of price gougers like Valeant (VRX) and Turing Pharmaceuticals. To thwart price gougers the report recommended the FDA prioritize reviews of generic drug applications for certain off-patent prescription drugs.
In fighting patent challenges against Restasis Allergan wants to keep price-gouging in the dry-eye market. It is also an effront to Ms. McCaskill and the work she has done on price gouging in the drug industry. They are calling McCaskill’s bluff. Will she follow through on that bill to thwart the Mohawks’s use of sovereign immunity to keep dry eye prices elevated?
