Appeals Court Lets AbbVie Off the Hook in Whistleblower Suit

AbbVie has skirted a whistleblower lawsuit accusing its subsidiary Allergan of employing fraudulent patents on two Alzheimer’s disease drugs to prevent generic competition, allegedly enabling it to massively overcharge Medicare.

In a decision that lets AbbVie off the hook — at least for now — a three-judge panel in the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals has reversed a district court’s order that allowed a whistleblower lawsuit against AbbVie to go ahead.

The lower court had ruled that a complaint by Zachary Silbersher, a partner at law firm Kroub, Silbersher and Kolmykov, should not be thrown out because it was derived from public information, but the appeals court judges disagreed.

Silbersher contends that AbbVie’s allegedly fraudulent patents for Namenda XR (memantine hydrochloride) and Namzaric (memantine hydrochloride and donepezil hydrochloride) inflated drug prices by over 80 percent.

Silbersher can still argue that he is the original source of the public information and that his case against AbbVie should be allowed to proceed.