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Medtronic Will Pay Abbott Laboratories $400 Million in Heart Stent Settlement

After ten years of debate and legal jousting for patent rights on heart stents, medical device maker, Medtronic, will pay its rival Abbott Labs $400 million to settle all existing claims as well as to block off any future claims---at least for the next decade.  The bare metal and drug-eluting stents were created to prevent cardiac arrest by scaffolding arteries to keep them open for blood flow.

Abbott inherited the patents and their respective litigation when it acquired Guidant in 2006.  Medtronic and Abbot have since been chasing each other across the globe in the name of vascular stenting--with claims filed in California, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Japan.  The long-awaited settlement comes just one week before trial was set to begin in San Francisco federal district court in a case brought by Medtronic against Abbott.

Countries May Have No Legal Recourse in Enforcing Vaccine Contracts with International Pharmaceutical Companies

The swine flu pandemic has already had a forceful impact across the globe, but with fall flu season just months away and pharmaceutical companies racing to fill vaccine orders, it may also prove to be a major game-changer in international contract law. 

Many countries have contracted to receive enough of the vaccine to satisfy their nation's needs; however, the private contracts between the countries and international pharmaceutical companies are not subject to binding international law.  And in the light of the pandemic nature of swine flu, aka an "extraordinary circumstance", legal experts are cautioning countries scheduled to have vaccines imported, to have a back-up plan.  Many of the vaccine order contracts contain clauses that allow breaking of the contracts under extraordinary circumstances opening the door for governments of countries with pharmaceutical plants to lock down vaccine stores to serve their country's needs first before exporting the vaccine abroad.

Express Scripts has announced that it will acquire WellPoint's pharmacy benefit manager unit, NextRx, in a deal totaling just under $4.68 billion in cash and stock.  The deal includes a 10-year contract for Express to provide prescription management services to Wellpoint once the deal actually closes.  NextRx provides services to roughly 25 million Americans, and manages 265 million prescriptions per year.

The purchase will position Express to compete with its major competitors in the sector, Medco Health Solutions and CVS Caremark.  With the acquisistion, Express will become the second largest player in the pharmacy benefits management sphere, suprassing its rival CVS Caremark.

WellPoint remains one of the country's largest insurers.