Supplement maker can't enjoin database changes, but avoids anti-SLAPP dismissal

Exeltis USA Inc. v. First Databank, Inc., 2017 WL 6539909, No. 17-cv-04810 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2017)This is an interesting case about the FDA/Lanham Act interaction. Exeltis sells prenatal vitamins that contain 1 mg of folic acid.  They aren’t available without a prescription and are labeled and sold “by prescription only.” First Databank publishes a database of information about pharmaceutical products, including Exeltis’s prenatal vitamins. Medicaid and insurance providers (payors) use the database to make reimbursement decisions. Historically, the “class value” field in the database signified whether manufacturers identified their products as prescription-only. In 2016, the FDA issued guidance that medical foods cannot be properly labeled “prescription only,” and that any such label would be false and misleading; it hasn’t issued similar guidance for supplements.  (Meanwhile—this will be important…

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