Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Company

MEMORANDUM

In 2002, Plaintiff-Appellant Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Amylin”), formed an alliance with Defendant-Appellee Eli Lilly and Co. (“Lilly”) to jointly market Amylin’s diabetes drug, exenatide. In 2005, Amylin received approval from the FDA to market exenatide as Byetta, and Amylin and Lilly began promoting Byet-ta pursuant to their agreement. In 2011, Lilly announced that it was entering into another alliance with Boehringer Ingel-heim GmbH (“BI”), to market BI’s diabetes drug, Tradjenta. Amylin demanded that Lilly use a separate sales force to market Tradjenta rather than the sales force that was privy to years of Amylin’s confidential marketing strategies and materials. Lilly refused. Amy-lin sued, requesting the district court enter a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) and preliminary injunction. The district court initially granted the TRO, but after briefing and a hearing, vacated the TRO and denied the injunction. The district court held that Amylin had not shown a likelihood of irreparable harm absent the injunction. Amylin has appealed.

A district court’s decision denying preliminary injunctive relief is subject to limited review. Harris v. Bd. of…