Merck Immune in Lawsuit Over Allegedly Misleading FDA on Vaccine: Appeals Court

Anticompetitive behavior did not violate the law because of immunity under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, Judge Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves said.
Merck Immune in Lawsuit Over Allegedly Misleading FDA on Vaccine: Appeals Court
Signage at the Merck & Co. headquarters in Kenilworth, N.J., on Nov. 13, 2021. Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Zachary Stieber
Zachary Stieber
Senior Reporter
|Updated:
0:00

Pharmaceutical company Merck is immune from claims that it violated antitrust laws by allegedly misleading the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the efficacy of its mumps vaccine, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Antitrust law bars monopolizing, attempting to monopolize, or conspiring to monopolize, and evidence in the case shows Merck “sought to extend its apparent monopoly by artificially raising the bar that GSK had to clear to obtain FDA approval for its competing mumps vaccine,” U.S. Circuit Judge Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves wrote on Oct. 7 for the majority of a split panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Zachary Stieber
Zachary Stieber
Senior Reporter
Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news. Contact Zachary at [email protected]
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