WilmerHale Partner Bill Lee has been named Litigator of the Week by Litigation Daily for his lead role in representing Pfizer in its $2.15 billion settlement with generic drug makers. The settlement is thought to be the largest ever in a patent case. This is the third time that Lee has been recognized with Litigation Daily’s exemplary Litigator of the Week award.

After a nearly 10-year legal battle in which Pfizer sought to enforce the patent for its blockbuster acid reflux medicine, Pfizer announced its settlement with Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries, Limited and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Limited for patent-infringement damages resulting from their "at-risk" launches of generic Protonix® in the United States. Dating back to the mid-2000’s, Teva and Sun launched generic versions of brand-name drugs before going through the legal procedure for challenging brand name drugs. According to Litigation Daily Reporter Jan Wolfe, “This week William [Bill] Lee of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr showed the generics just how risky that strategy can be.”

When reflecting on this week’s settlement, Amy W. Schulman, executive vice president and general counsel of Pfizer stated, “We are proud of the work of the scientific colleagues who developed this medicine and the lawyers who defended it."

Lee received the Litigator of the Week award in 2008 when he was recognized for back-to-back victories for Broadcom and Targus, and in 2012 when Apple defeated all of Samsung’s claims of infringement and obtained a jury award of more than $1 billion on Apple’s claims.