Business: preserving access to affordable drugs.

The Cartwright Act makes every trust, subject to specified exemptions, unlawful, against public policy, and void and defines "trust" for purposes of the act as a combination of capital, skill, or acts by 2 or more persons, defined as corporations, firms, partnerships, and associations, for certain designated purposes. Under existing law, these purposes include creating or carrying out restrictions in trade or commerce or preventing competition in manufacturing, marketing, transportation, sale, or purchase of merchandise, produce, or any commodity. The Unfair Practices Act makes certain business practices unlawful, including unfair competition. Under existing law, unfair competition is defined to include an unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business act or practice, unfair, deceptive, untrue, or misleading advertising, and any false representations to the public. This bill would provide that an agreement resolving or settling, on a final or interim basis, a patent infringement claim, in connection with the sale of a pharmaceutical product, is to be presumed to have anticompetitive effects if a nonreference drug filer receives anything of value, as defined, from another company asserting patent infringement and if the nonreference drug filer agrees to limit or forego research, development, manufacturing, marketing, or sales of the nonreference drug filer's product for any period of time, as specified. The bill would provide various exceptions to this prohibition, including, among others, if the agreement has directly generated procompetitive benefits and the procompetitive benefits of the agreement outweigh the anticompetitive effects of the agreement. The bill would make a violation of these provisions punishable by a civil penalty that is recoverable only in a civil action brought by the Attorney General, as specified. The bill would provide that a violator is liable for any other remedies available under the Cartwright Act, the Unfair Practices Act, or the unfair competition law. The bill would require a cause of action to enforce those provisions be commenced within 4 years after the course of action accrued. The bill would define various terms for these purposes.