Question

Hello I need question 3 with 3/4 of a page. There are two documents as you will see.
unheuser has strugsled with slow growth of t Market Senacthure Monopoly and Monopoistic Competition 221 ket beers in recent years. U.S. sales laws in its efforts to prevent an Israeli company from successfully selling a generie version of its cholesterol medicine, TriCor. Drug companies usually have three to 10 years of exclusive patent rights remaining when their products hit the market. However, they can often find ways to extend their monopolies by patenting slight improvements to those drugs. Twenty-five states and the Distriet of Columbia filed suit in federal court alleging that in addition to filing new patents on questionable improvements to TriCor, Abbott engaged in a practice known as "product switching. This involves retiring ar existing drug and replacing it with a modified version that is marketed as "new and improved, preventing pharmacists from substituting a generic for the branded drug when they nl prescriptions for it. Although this strategy is not illegal, the plaintiffs argue that Abbott employed it and other strategies solely to preserve its monopoly on TriCor suffered from greater competition from a its. There is increasing consolidation in the growth in mature markets, such as the have de range of beers, including smal -batch craf ers and imports, as well as from wine and spiha beer industry as brewers try to balance sloi ed States and Westem Europe, with rapid Or th in emerging markets such as China and Europe. There are also increasing for commodities, such as barley aluminum, and glass, making it important to InBev has only a tiny presence in the United States and would like to acquire Anheuser, which has led the U.S. industry since 1957 ted? In Bev, which is intensely budget-conscious, sees out of Anheuser. The two companies have an opportunity to wring significant cost-savings relatively little geographic overlap. By mergin they could gain a stronger position in China, where they both have been expanding recently China is the world's largest beer market by One year after TriCor hit the market in 1999 Israeli Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries applied to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market a similar version of the drug. Abbott sued Teva for patent infringement, which triggered a 30-month waiting period during which the generic drug could not be launched while patent challenges were being debated. During the waiting period, Abbott altered its product, lowering the dosage and changing it to a tablet from a capsule. It filed for a patent on this modified form of TriCor, bought back the remaining supplies of the capsules and replaced them with the lower-dose tablet. When the 30 months had elapsed, Teva could no longer launch its generic drug because InBev has secured commitments from banks to provide at least $40 billion in debt financing for the merger. Its success in raising the financial capital is an indication that banks are willing to lend substantial sums to companies with investment-grade credit ratings despite the continued turmoil in the financial markets and the efforts of a number of institutions to raise capital. InBev also has the U.S. public to consider because many U.S. citizens believe that Budweiser remains it was no longer strictly bioequivalent to the modified TriCor a powerful symbol of Americana. A Florida couple recently started a Web site called SaveBudweiser.com to rally support against a sale to InBev This process was repeated again from 2002 to 2005. Teva filed a counter-suit alleging anti-trust law violation. The company argued that Abbott's a. Based on the concepts in this chapter, discuss the factors leading to this proposed takeover strategy would allow pharmaceutical comparies to protect their monopolies indefinitely Abbott said it has the right to protect its innovatiors and deaies switching formulations for the sole purpose of warding off generic competition. It said the two switches brought improvements for patients Teva argued that the drug's active ingredient stayed the same and that the supposed improvements were smoke screens. merger in the beer industry. What factors might create problens for the merger? in the pharmaceutical industry: State and federal authorities are examining 3. The following discussion describes a patent dispute whether Abbott Laboratories violated antitrustDescribe the role of patents as barriers to entry in the pharmaceutical industry. In the current business Wall media, follow up on this and other similar cases involving drug patents to determine the strategies that Shirley Street Journal, June 2, 2008 8 Wang "TriCor Case May Illuminate Patent Limits,"

Answer 1

Such patents form biggest entry barriers in drug industry and thus generic drugs are forced to innovate and rrnew ingredients which sometimes make them ineffective to patients. Also prices generally kept at bottom so customers switch to generic brands.

Similar class action lawsuits have bene filed by Teva against Ranbaxy for its drug called AstraZeneca which violates AntriTrust laws and US FDa for its product monopoly and price rigging and both parties hav enegotiated together as means to reach common ground and thus avert lawsuit as potential strategy .