Interested in learning about the evolution of Juvan's Health Law Update to Juvan's Health Law & Private Equity Report? Then head over to Kevin O'Keefe's site Real Lawyer's Have Blogs and check out Lisa Kennelly's story, entitled Blog Evolves Along with Practice for Cleveland Attorney Jayne Juvan. Many thanks to Lisa for the coverage.
The April 2008 issue of the Health Care M&A Monthly (subscription only publication) reports the announcement of 219 health care transactions in Q1 2008, down from the activity in both Q4 2007 (301 deals, down 27%) and Q1 2007 (237 deals, down 8%). Biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device deals account for almost 75% of the deals announced, while home health, managed care, hospitals, long term care and behavioral health transactions collectively accounted for only about 8% of the volume. The authors recognize that the decline is due, at least in part, to the credit crunch and the fact that activities of financial buyers have slowed, but point out that health care tends to be anti-cyclic and that the industry is still very much in need of consolidation. Make sure to check out the full report for additional analysis on these and other industry trends. For those who closely follow HC M&A activity, you may want to consider a subscription to this publication, as I have found the analysis to be very good.
The Medical Humanities Blog recently featured Juvan's Health Law Update. The blog is written by Daniel Goldberg, a second-year student in the Ph.D program in medical humanities at University of Texas Medical Branch's Institute for Medical Humanities. Daniel is also an attorney and currently serves as a Research Professor with the Health Law and Policy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center. Along with top-notch commentary, the blog includes links to many worthwhile medical humanities and health law and policy sites. Here's a look at Daniel's article:
Jayne Juvan has several interesting posts (can't find permalinks) relating to the possibility of legislation prohibiting negotiations between brand-drug and generic manufacturers that have the objective of delaying the latter's entry into a given therapeutic market.
Consumer group advocates have argued that the current system favors both generic and brand name companies while detrimentally impacting consumers who are forced to front the high cost of brand named drugs while the delay is in effect. Others, such as Bill Tauzin, a former Republican congressman from Louisiana, believe that such deals are actually pro-consumer. In the Bloomberg article, Tauzin is quoted as saying that the payments "can benefit consumers'' by ending costly patent litigation that can cause longer delays in marketing generic drugs and can exhaust the litigants' "valuable resources."
I know some, but not a great deal, about antitrust, but there is a fairly extensive argument in the literature suggesting that antitrust law ought to be viewed contextually, at least in part according to the enforcement priorities of the particular administration charged with applying the laws.
*Shameless Plug*: I've written about this precisely in the context of the types of deals Juvan is noting. In the paper, I examine how the post 9/11 context influenced such deals particularly with respect to Cipro (which regularly made national headlines as a frontline treatment for anthrax bioterror attacks). Details on exactly how such deals delay market entry is also covered, as is the intersection between the innovation incentives of the patent system and the anticompetitive ideals of the antitrust laws (all examined in social context).
I ultimately conclude that such agreements are anticompetitive. Thoughts?
You're conclusion is probably correct, Daniel, but I think these agreements are here to stay, at least in the short term. Thanks for featuring the article!
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