Abbott Prevails Over Glaxo on Antitrust Claims

In March 2011, a jury in Oakland rejected GlaxoSmithKline's antitrust claims against Abbott Laboratories. GSK claimed that Abbott engaged in anticompetitive bundled discounting by increasing the price of one of its HIV drugs, Norvir, which is used to “boost” the effects other HIV drugs called protease inhibitors, and keeping constant the price of another Abbott HIV drug, Kaletra. Kaletra includes both the active ingredient in Norvir (ritonavir) and a protease inhibitor (lopinavir). According to GSK, Abbott’s pricing anticompetitively disadvantaged rival protease inhibitors, including GSK’s drug Lexiva, that are prescribed with Norvir as a booster. The jury rejected all of GSK’s antitrust claims. The jury awarded Glaxo $3.4 million on its breach of contract claims, much less than the more than $1.7 billion (after trebling) that GSK alleged. Compass Lexecon expert Richard Gilbert offered testimony on antitrust liability issues on behalf of Abbott. Joel Hay testified for Abbott on market definition issues and alleged damages. The Compass Lexecon team supporting Profs. Gilbert and Hay included Andres Lerner, Emmett Dacey, Guy Ben-Ishai, Dan Adomian, Rob Oandasan, and Janin Wimer. Compass Lexecon was retained by James Hurst of Winston and Strawn and by Jeffrey Weinberger of Munger, Tolles & Olson.