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A newly enacted California law that bans so-called pay-to-delay deals between drug makers would reduce competition and consequently lead to higher prices for medicines, according to a lawsuit recently filed by a trade group for generic drug companies. In these deals, a brand-name drug maker settles a patent lawsuit by paying cash or transferring something else of value to an erstwhile generic rival, which agrees to delay launching a copycat medicine until a specific date in the future. This gives the brand-name drug maker more time to sell its medicine without lower-cost competition. (Silverman, 11/25)

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and other generic drugmakers have held talks with the U.S. Justice Department in the past six months about resolving a long-running criminal antitrust probe of alleged price-fixing by the companies, according to people familiar with the matter. Among the possible outcomes that have been discussed are deferred prosecution agreements in which the companies would admit to certain allegations but would be shielded from indictment in exchange for cooperating with the investigation and paying fines. (Griffin, Court and McLaughlin, 11/25)

When House Democrats pass legislation next month that would slash prescription drug spending to the tune of $1 trillion, they’ll have John and Laura Arnold to thank. The Texas billionaires, who in recent years have used their wealth to turbocharge America’s drug pricing debate, have brought their advocacy to a peak as Congress edges closer to enacting drug-price reforms. (Facher, 11/26)

There is a method to the madness of Novartis chief executive Vas Narasimhan’s deal strategy. The Swiss pharmaceuticals giant is paying nearly $10 billion for Medicines Co., the developer of a promising new cholesterol drug called inclisiran. That price is bound to turn heads considering that the main attraction isn’t expected to start generating sales until 2021. Novartis said the purchase would modestly lower earnings over the “next few” years. This comes after Novartis’s 2018 purchase of gene therapy startup AveXis for $8.7 billion. (Grant, 11/25)

Novartis AG agreed to buy cholesterol-drugmaker Medicines Co. for nearly $10 billion, in a pricey bid to expand its reach in the lucrative market for heart treatments. The pharmaceutical giant will pay $85 a share, the companies said Sunday, confirming an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal. That implies a fully diluted equity value of $9.7 billion, they said. (Cimilluca, Lombardo and Rockoff, 11/24)

New research led by Dr. Pieter Cohen of Harvard Medical School documents five supplement brands for sale in the U.S. that contain various amounts of piracetam, a drug prescribed in European countries for cognitive impairment in dementia but not approved in the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t allow piracetam to be sold as a dietary supplement and has issued warning letters in the past to other companies marketing supplements that contain it. Though the drug is approved in Europe, evidence for using piracetam to improve cognition was “inadequate,” a Cochrane Review analyzing 24 studies that enrolled more than 11,000 patients concluded in 2012. (Cooney, 11/25)

Activist investor Starboard Value LP has taken a stake in CVS Health Corp. and held talks with the drugstore-and-insurance giant’s management, according to people familiar with the matter. The stake appears to be relatively small and the people said the talks, held recently, are amicable. How much Starboard currently owns and what it has discussed with the company couldn’t be learned. But Starboard is one of the top activist-investment firms and its presence in a stock usually causes a company to sit up and take notice. (Driebusch, 11/25)

Shares of CVS Health Corp. rose after a report that activist investment firm Starboard Value LP had taken a small stake in the drugstore chain and held talks with management. Shares of the company, which runs almost 10,000 drugstores across the U.S., closed up 1.7% Monday after the Wall Street Journal’s report. (Langreth, 11/25)

Oregon State University pharmacy professor Daniel Hartung has long suspected that corporate greed is behind skyrocketing prescription drug costs, not pharmaceutical companies’ investment in research as company executives regularly claim. Now, Hartung and his research team have the evidence straight from some of those responsible for growing drug costs, revealed in anonymous interviews with four pharmaceutical executives and published Monday in the journal Neurology. (Zarkhin, 11/25)