The US District Court for the District of Columbia dismisses the FTC’s claims of anticompetitive horizontal agreement involving opioid medication (Endo / Impax)

On March 24, 2022, Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s (the “Commission”) complaint against Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. (“Endo”), Impax Laboratories, LLC (“Impax”) and Impax’s owner, Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Amneal”), regarding Endo’s oxymorphone extended-release product, Opana ER. This case was the second enforcement action that the Commission brought against the companies regarding Opana ER. The first action had been brought as an administrative complaint and held that Endo and Impax (a potential competitor with a generic formulation of Opana ER) had entered into an anticompetitive “reverse payment” settlement agreement in 2010 (before the Supreme Court decision in FTC v. Actavis [1] was decided).