Eli Lilly & Co. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

96 F. Supp. 3d 824, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30175, 2015 WL 1125032
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Indiana
DecidedMarch 12, 2015
DocketNo. 1:14-cv-00389-SEB-TAB
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 96 F. Supp. 3d 824 (Eli Lilly & Co. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Eli Lilly & Co. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 96 F. Supp. 3d 824, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30175, 2015 WL 1125032 (S.D. Ind. 2015).

Opinion

ORDER DENYING THE MYLAN DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS FOR LACK OF PERSONAL JURISDICTION

SARAH EVANS BARKER, District Judge.

This cause is before the Court on the Motion to Dismiss [Docket No. 150], filed on May 2, 2014, by Defendants Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Mylan, Inc., and Mylan Laboratories, Ltd. (collectively, “the Mylan Defendants”).1 The Mylan Defendants contend that we lack personal jurisdiction over them and seek dismissal of the Complaint against them. Plaintiffs Eli Lilly and Company, Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd., Daiichi Sankyo, Inc., and Ube Industries, Ltd. (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) rejoin that this court does have personal jurisdiction over the Mylan Defendants, and further, if we determine there is no personal jurisdiction, the proper remedy is not to dismiss, but rather to transfer the case to an appropriate forum.

On May 30, 2014, Plaintiffs moved for time to conduct jurisdictional discovery regarding the Mylan Defendants’ contacts with Indiana, and the Magistrate Judge granted that request as well as an enlargement of time to respond to the Mylan Defendants’ motion to dismiss. That discovery period has now ended and the My-lan Defendants’ Motion to dismiss is fully briefed and ripe for ruling. For the reasons detailed below, we DENY the Mylan Defendants’ Motion.

Factual Background

Plaintiffs have brought this claim against the Mylan Defendants and others alleging that Defendants infringed three of Plaintiffs’ patents by filing an Abbreviated New Drug Application (“ANDA”) with the [828]*828FDA seeking approval to sell generic versions of Eli Lilly’s pharmaceutical product Effient®. Effient® is an ■anti-thrombotic drug approved for use in the United States to prevent or reduce the risk of blood clots and stent thrombosis in patients suffering from acute coronary syndrome who receive stents. The patents at issue protect the molecule prasugrel hydrochloride, the active ingredient in Ef-fient® (U.S. Patent No. 5,288,726 (the '726 patent)), and methods of using Effient® and aspirin, as directed on the label (U.S. Patent No. 8,404,703 and 8,569,325 (the '703 and '325 patents)).

The Mylan Defendants are three of the forty original defendants who challenged the validity of Plaintiffs’ patents that cover Effient®.2 Defendant Mylan, Inc. (“My-lan”) is one of the world’s leading generic and specialty pharmaceutical companies with over 20,000 employees in its family of companies. Mylan markets more than 1,300 separate products in approximately 140 different countries and territories. Mylan is a Pennsylvania corporation with its principal place of business in Canons-burg. Two of Mylan’s subsidiary corporations — Defendants Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Mylan Pharmaceuticals”) and Mylan Laboratories, Ltd. (“Mylan Laboratories”) — are named in this litigation and have joined Mylan in this motion to dismiss. Mylan Pharmaceuticals is incorporated in West Virginia with its principal place of business in Morgantown, West Virginia. Mylan Laboratories is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of India with its principal place of business in Hyderabad, India.

The Mylan Defendants do not have offices or facilities in Indiana nor do they have a telephone listing or mailing address in Indiana. Although the Mylan Defendants assert in their opening brief that they have no employees or officers in Indiana (Tighe Decl. ¶ 6), deposition testimony establishes that Mylan Pharmaceuticals has at least four employees who do live in Indiana, including two members of the company’s eight-to-ten member National Account Managers group, which manages Mylan’s national sales relationships. Exh. 3 at 70-71. Mylan Pharmaceuticals obtained a wholesaler drug license allowing it to sell its generic products in Indiana and its Indiana sales include dozens of Mylan products. Id. at 63, 201. Mylan Pharmaceuticals sells Mylan products directly to retailers in Indiana as well as to wholesalers, knowing that the wholesalers sell their products in Indiana. Id. at 65, 69. Mylan Pharmaceuticals also makes sales calls and directs promotional materials to residents of Indiana. Exh. 5.

On July 10, 2013, Mylan Pharmaceuticals submitted an ANDA to the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) seeking approval to market generic prasugrel hydrochloride tablets in the United States. The ANDA was prepared in West Virginia and filed in Maryland. The ANDA included a “Paragraph IV” certification that the '726, '703, and '325 patents exclusively licensed to Eli Lilly are invalid, unenforceable, and will not be infringed. Mylan Pharmaceuticals also directed a Notice Letter to Lilly in Indiana, informing Lilly of its Paragraph IV certification as required under the Hatch-Waxman Act. Plaintiffs then filed in this court their complaint for patent infringement, alleging, inter alia, that the Mylan Defendants “market[ ] and provide! ]” generic drugs to Indiana residents. Compl. ¶¶ 90-92. Plaintiffs filed their complaint in this court within 45 days of [829]*829receiving the Notice Letter, triggering the statutorily prescribed 30-month stay during which the Mylan Defendants are prohibited from proceeding with sales of their generic drug. See 21 U.S.C. § 355(j)(5)(B)(iii).

Legal Analysis

I. Standard of Review

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) requires dismissal of a claim where personal jurisdiction is lacking. When “[a] defendant moves to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction, the plaintiff bears the burden of demonstrating the existence of jurisdiction.” Purdue Research Found. v. Sanofi-Synthelabo, S.A., 338 F.3d 773, 782 (7th Cir.2003) (citations omitted). When a district court rules on a defendant’s motion to dismiss based on the submission of written materials, the plaintiff “need only make out a -prima facie case of personal jurisdiction” and “is entitled to the resolution in its favor of all disputes concerning relevant facts presented in the record.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

Federal Circuit law governs personal jurisdiction issues in patent infringement cases. See Hildebrand v. Steele Mfg. Co., 279 F.3d 1351, 1354 (Fed.Cir.2002). A district court may properly exercise personal jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant if a two-step analysis is undertaken and satisfied. First, the party resisting the exercise of jurisdiction must be amenable to service of process under the state’s long-arm statute; second, the exercise of personal jurisdiction must comport with the due process clause of the Constitution. Id. Because Indiana’s long-arm statute, Indiana Rule of Trial Procedure 4.4(A), “expand[s] personal jurisdiction to the full extent permitted by the Due Process Clause,” LinkAmerica Corp. v. Cox, 857 N.E.2d 961, 966 (Ind.2006), the sole question before us is whether due process would be offended were we to exercise personal jurisdiction over the Mylan Defendants.

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Bluebook (online)
96 F. Supp. 3d 824, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30175, 2015 WL 1125032, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/eli-lilly-co-v-mylan-pharmaceuticals-inc-insd-2015.