University Involvement

For a long period of time, UGARF worked cooperatively with Dr. Kaswan and KB Visions to protect the veterinary use patent rights. Concerned about damaging their image among Georgia pharmacists, UGARF eventually withdrew from the process and requested that Dr. Kaswan solely assume compliance efforts.

After FDA approval of Restasis®, UGARF's interests changed substantially. UGARF initiated legal action against Dr. Kaswan, falsely alleging that she was acting against their instructions, outside of the terms of the patent license agreement and announced intent to retract her licensing agreement. Additionally, UGARF suspended royalty payments from Dr. Kaswan from January 2003 through July 2005, and September 2008 to present.

In an August 2003 deposition taken by defendants in the UGARF initiated lawsuits the UGARF initiated lawsuits, UGA President Michael Adams, who served as UGARF President pleaded complete ignorance of the legal controversy surrounding the licenses and the lawsuits, stating that they did not rise to the level of an “institutional concern.” Yet also in August, 2003, the same month he gave his deposition, he presided over an executive session of the UGARF board, where he presented these issues and recommended the dual course of action taken: secretly accept Allergan's royalty buy-down proposal and continue litigation against Dr. Kaswan for the purpose of distraction and coercion.

Adams' harmful decisions as President of UGARF coincided with his rivalry with a hugely popular football coach whom he summarily fired in 2003, an action which triggered statewide calls for his dismissal. Official notes from the closed UGARF executive board meeting, produced in discovery and kept under court seal until made public by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Richard Whit contradict President Adams' testimony in his deposition and reveal his decisions and motives.

At Adams' direction, UGARF acted in bad faith violating UGA Intellectual Property Policies and Georgia Sunshine Laws to the ultimate detriment of UGA and benefit of Allergan. Allergan refused to provide their initial sales projections to the university. Questions remain as to why UGARF went forward without this valuable information.

In court, UGARF's defense of its actions amounted to innocence based on naiveté. Remarkably, Ed Tolley, one of UGA's attorneys in the proceedings, said the University's actions were “stupid” but not illegal. When it became impossible to continue insisting the secret royalty buy-down was financially advantageous for UGA, confessing to 'poor judgment' was preferable to abuse of power, perjury, and illegal conduct in violation of Georgia's Sunshine Laws. There are very few exceptions to Georgia's Open Meetings/Open Records Laws and the agreement between Allergan and UGARF does not meet those criteria.