Margaux Hall, Tim Farrell and Laura Hoey Examine How Life Sciences Manufacturers Can Protect Information from Public Records Requests

In The News
March 2, 2021

In Bloomberg Law, health care partner Margaux Hall (Washington, D.C.), litigation & enforcement partners Tim Farrell and Laura Hoey (both of Chicago) examine how pharmaceutical manufacturers can manage proprietary information, provided to U.S. state governments under law, that can become subject to a third-party records request.

The authors write that, “Once a manufacturers’ information is in a state agency’s possession—whether obtained through RFP responses, mandatory reports, or otherwise—it becomes the potential subject of a disclosure request by the public under the state's public records laws. However, in order to compete effectively in the marketplace—while maintaining confidentiality of pricing and other proprietary information—manufacturers must be mindful of all the tools in the toolkit to maintain confidentiality over their proprietary information."

The article provides an overview of public records laws, and it offers steps and considerations for manufacturers to bear in mind both when initially disclosing sensitive information to a state agency, and when confronted with a third party's public records request for that information.