Amicus Victory for COSAL in Regeneron v. Novartis Pharma
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Regeneron v. Novartis Pharma sided with the plaintiff and overturned the district court decision to dismiss the complaint. COSAL had filed an amicus brief in the case urging this result.
The brief argued:
The District Court committed legal error by misconstruing or ignoring Plaintiff-Appellant Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.’s (“Regeneron”) well-pled allegations of market definition, failing to draw all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to Regeneron, and imposing a heightened standard to plead market definition to dismiss with prejudice Regeneron’s First Amended Complaint (“FAC”). The District Court’s holding is not only contrary to the generalpleading requirements set force in Fed. R. Civ. P. 8, Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), but alsoissue precedent from the Supreme Court and this Circuit holding that market definition is a deeply fact intensive inquiry that—absent two unique circumstances not present here—can only be determined after discovery and a factual inquiry into commercial market realities. Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image TechnicalServs., Inc., 504 U.S. 451 (1992). Not only did Regeneron’s FAC at a minimum plead a plausible market definition relying on the “practical indicia” announced in the Supreme Court’s Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294, 325 (1962), but Regeneron far surpassed the pleading standard by explaining why each alternative product that Defendants identified is not reasonably interchangeable with the products in Regeneron’s well-defined market.
Thank you to the the team that wrote the brief: Chad Holtzman, Steve Williams, and Jessica Khan!
