In Lakeland Regional Medical Center Inc. v. Astellas Pharma US Inc. et al., Middle District of Florida Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington held that a Florida hospital lacked standing to sue for damages, allegedly totally $867 million, in an antitrust class action accusing Astellas Pharma of using a patented testing process to restrain competition in the market for a cardiac testing drug.
The plaintiff alleged that Astellas anticompetitively tied a particular drug to its patented cardiac stress test process. The proprietary testing method requires a doctor to inject the unpatented drug adenosine in order to create the illusion of heart stress in patients unable to accellerate their own heart rate by running on a treadmill. Lakeland Regional alleged Astellas anticompetitively compelled hospitals to be Astellas’s brand of adenosine at supra-competitive prices more than four times that of a generic version of the drug.
Because Lakeland Regional purchased Astellas’ branded drug from third-parties, the plaintiff was an indirect purchaser that thus barred from seeking damages under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1977 Illinois Brick decision.
This bar to seeking damages, according to the court, also “eviscerates Lakeland Regional’s . . . ability to meet the [class certification] requirements of Rule 23(a).” Although Illinois Brick’s rule only applies to damages — not injunctive or declaratory relief — the judge held that those claims were alleged in an overly vague fashion and thus could not proceed. “The amorphous injunctive and declaratory relief sought,” Judge Covington found, “appears to be completely incidental to the damages claim.”