Pay for Delay Agreements: Antitrust Watch Intensifies

The pharmaceutical sector has constantly endeavoured to balance its dual objectives of promoting state-of-art innovation and achieving affordable healthcare for all. The contrasting aims are also germane to the inevitable conflict between the competition law and the patent law with respect to this sector. Reverse payment settlement is one such concept that lies at the cross-section of these two legislations and strangely offers an uncanny mechanism where extreme partisans (i.e., innovator and generics) become comrades, thereby prodding genuine concerns and exposing legal vulnerabilities of such agreements. Against this backdrop, this article seeks to examine the growing undercurrent re reverse payment settlement agreements from a competition law perspective. In an attempt to harmonize the conflicting policy objectives, it will study the interplay between patent law and competition law by placing reliance on the approach followed by other jurisdictions. Further, this article will also assess whether reverse payment settlement agreements fall within the statutory construct of the Competition Act, 2002 and whether the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) can assert its jurisdiction over such agreements. An attempt is also made to outline the approach which the CCI could adopt, bearing in mind the importance of ensuring exclusivity as an incentive for innovation