MORRISVILLE — Liquidia agreed to pay a net $380.7 million to settle six lawsuits with United Therapeutics, preserving YUTREPIA sales for pulmonary arterial hypertension while withdrawing YUTREPIA from a second lung-disease market.
The Morrisville biopharmaceutical company said the global agreement resolves patent, trade-secret, contract and antitrust disputes that have shadowed its lead commercial product. YUTREPIA will remain available for pulmonary arterial hypertension, or PAH, without interruption.
Liquidia will make a $175 million net payment within 30 business days and pay another $145.4 million in two installments due by Jan. 31 and April 30, 2027. It also agreed to pay $60.3 million this month to parties with interests in related antitrust litigation. Those obligations total the disclosed net settlement amount.
The company reported $396.1 million in cash and cash equivalents as of Sept. 30 and said it expects to fund the payments with cash on hand and ongoing YUTREPIA sales. Preliminary, unaudited third-quarter product sales were $222.7 million.
As part of the agreement, Liquidia will not appeal a Sept. 30 patent ruling. It submitted a request to remove pulmonary hypertension associated with interstitial lung disease, or PH-ILD, from YUTREPIA’s label and stopped promoting the drug for that indication. Reuters reported that Liquidia also will terminate related trial cohorts and stop publishing data from them.
The settlement converts litigation uncertainty into a defined payment schedule and narrows the commercial market for the Morrisville company’s flagship product. It also allows Liquidia to keep selling YUTREPIA in PAH while focusing resources on that market and its remaining development pipeline.