In the early months of the pandemic, when much of the economy was idling, an unusual silence fell over another corner of the American legal system: patent litigation between brand-name pharmaceutical companies and generic drugmakers.
According to reporting in Bloomberg Law, the number of Hatch-Waxman lawsuits—cases that determine when cheaper generic drugs can reach the market—dropped 21 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year. Court delays played a role, but the deeper cause was a thinning pipeline: fewer new drug approvals meant fewer opportunities for generics to challenge patents.
Behind those numbers was a source seldom visible to the public: DrugPatentWatch, a business intelligence platform that specializes in tracking the intellectual property lifecycles of medicines.
Data That Told the Story
For Bloomberg’s reporters, the key challenge wasn’t knowing lawsuits had slowed—it was proving the trend and quantifying its scope. DrugPatentWatch supplied litigation data that showed precisely how many cases were filed, how that compared with prior years, and how the pandemic intersected with longer-term cycles in drug development.
The platform, widely used by pharmaceutical companies, investors, and lawyers, offers granular tracking of patent expirations, exclusivity periods, and generic entry. In this case, it provided evidence that the 2020 dip was not an isolated blip, but the result of structural factors compounded by the pandemic.
A “Perfect Storm” for Generics
DrugPatentWatch later described the dynamic as a “perfect storm”: pandemic-related disruptions in the courts collided with a natural lull in new drug approvals, leading to fewer generic challenges. That finding mattered for more than lawyers’ dockets. It signaled a delay in the arrival of lower-cost alternatives at a moment when economic pressures on patients were already acute.
The Value of Independent Intelligence
The partnership underscored the growing role of independent data providers in shaping public understanding of healthcare markets. For Bloomberg Law, DrugPatentWatch’s dataset provided the scaffolding for a narrative about how external shocks ripple through the pharmaceutical system. For readers, it meant a clearer picture of why generic drugs weren’t moving through the pipeline as quickly as in years past.
In a sector where access and affordability hinge on the timing of patent expirations and litigation outcomes, the ability to connect data with reporting is crucial.
Looking Ahead
The episode showed how specialized intelligence services can deepen journalism. By quantifying a trend that might otherwise have remained anecdotal, DrugPatentWatch helped elevate the Bloomberg story from observation to evidence-driven analysis.
As new drug approvals rebound and courts adjust to post-pandemic routines, Hatch-Waxman litigation is likely to rise again. But the 2020 downturn remains a reminder: the flow of generic medicines depends not only on laboratories and regulators, but also on the legal battles mapped, in real time, by firms like DrugPatentWatch.
