Jazz loses bid to drop Avadel antitrust claims involving narcolepsy and drugs

Jazz Pharmaceuticals Limited Liability Company Avadel Pharmaceuticals Plc failed to avoid antitrust counterclaims alleging that it improperly listed its Xyrem patent in order to delay Avadel’s launch of its competing narcolepsy drug Lumryz.

Judge Gregory B. Williams found sufficient basis to believe that Jazz may have lacked a reasonable basis for listing U.S. Patent No. 8,731,963 on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s registry of approved drugs, the Orange Book, so he granted Avadel’s antitrust counterclaims for infringement by Jazz, according to an opinion issued May 24 in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, the case should be reopened.

Williams discovered that there was a “real…