Hangley Aronchick Secures Major Antitrust Trial Victory in Pay-For-Delay Litigation

Hangley Aronchick shareholders Barry Refsin and Eric Bloom, along with associates Alex Egerváry, Caitlin McHugh and Cary Zhang, and paralegal Julie Solt, secured a major antitrust trial victory on behalf of CVS Pharmacy Inc., with a Boston federal jury finding that Takeda Pharmaceuticals had conspired to delay the launch of a generic version of the anti-constipation medication Amitiza.

During a five-week trial, the team successfully argued that a 2014 patent litigation settlement among Takeda, Sucampo Pharmaceuticals Inc., and generic drugmaker Par Pharmaceuticals Inc. was an unlawful “pay-for-delay” arrangement that ensured branded Amitiza was the only option on the market for the next seven years.

A class of Amitiza purchasers, including CVS, said the settlement included a royalty structure that made it “economically irrational” for Takeda or Sucampo to launch an authorized generic to compete with Par’s generic version of Amitiza. CVS challenged this implicit no-authorized generic agreement as a reverse payment by Takeda and Sucampo to compensate Par for agreeing to delay generic Amitiza.

On May 18, 2026, after deliberating for less than two days, a nine-member jury returned a verdict in favor of all plaintiffs and awarded total damages of $885 million, much of which will be automatically trebled by the court when it enters judgment. CVS’s single damages are over $190 million and will also be trebled. The jury rejected Takeda’s defenses that the settlement was procompetitive, that Par faced insurmountable obstacles to launching its own generic before 2021, and that Takeda lacked market power in what it called a “crowded” market for anti-constipation drugs.

It is the first verdict in favor of plaintiffs since the Supreme Court held that reverse payments could be found to violate the antitrust laws in FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. 136 (2013). Three prior reverse payment trials ended in defense verdicts.

The verdict, which was covered by Law360, followed a series of favorable pretrial rulings from U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun, who, in September 2025, certified classes of direct purchasers and end payors and later denied Takeda’s motion for summary judgment.