May 18, 2026

Associate Dean Lietzan’s article highlighted in The Regulatory Review

Associate Dean and Professor Erika Lietzan‘s new article forthcoming in the SMU Law Review, “FDA After Loper Bright,” was recently reviewed in “The Regulatory Review.” The Review article highlights Professor Lietzans argument that the Loper Bright decision “may not be nearly as devastating” for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as many scholars believe it will be. Read the full The Regulatory Review article here.

May 6, 2026

Professor Lietzan edits book on pharmaceutical marketplace

Professor Erika Lietzan edited a new book just published in French, titled “Le marché pharmaceutique, de l’aporie à une dialectique commerce international/santé.” The book, published by European publisher Mare & Martin, discusses the pharmaceutical marketplace and a wide range of issues relating to reconciling the importance of medicine to global public health with its nature as a commodity like any other. The chapters were written from a range of academic perspectives by scholars around the world. Professor Lietzan also wrote a chapter herself on the prospects for the U.S. government to play a role in the pharmaceutical marketplace. Read more…

April 14, 2026

Professor Lietzan presents at WashU Ideas Lunch

Professor Erika Lietzan presented her paper, “Solutions Still Searching for a Problem: A Call for Relevant Data to Support ‘Evergreening’ Allegations,” at a recent “Ideas Lunch” for the Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine & Law at Washington University in St. Louis. Professor Lietzan’s paper, published in a 2023 issue of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal, audited a dataset being offered to support allegations of evergreening. She also discussed ongoing work Professor Lietzan and her coauthor, Kristina Lybecker are doing in that area.

April 10, 2026

Professor Lietzan publishes op-ed on drug patents

The narrative that brand-name drugmakers manipulate the patent system to block lower-cost generics has gained traction in recent years. But the evidence doesn’t support that claim.  In a new @IPWatchdog, Inc op-ed, Professor Lietzan examines the data — and explains why developing new versions of existing products isn’t patent abuse. It’s how innovation works in every industry.  You can read the full piece here.

Jan. 15, 2026

Professor Lietzan ranked in top 10 for scholarly impact

Professor and Associate Dean Erika Lietzan ranks #9 overall in scholarly impact for her work in Food and Drug Law, according to new rankings by HeinOnline. HeinOnline’s rankings provide monthly updates identifying the most influential legal scholars, journals, and institutions. Developed using HeinOnline’s own ranking methodology, these metrics reflect a comprehensive analysis of citation patterns across the entire corpus of journal content within HeinOnline.

Dec. 15, 2025

Associate Dean Lietzan speaks at Food and Drug Law Institute conference

Associate Dean Erika Lietzan spoke at the annual Enforcement, Litigation, and Compliance conference of the Food and Drug Law Institute earlier in December. She addressed the likely impact on FDA of several recent Supreme Court administrative law cases, including SEC v. Jarkesy (relating to an agency’s ability to adjudicate civil money penalties administratively) and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (which overruled the Chevron decision and established that courts must consider questions of law de novo rather than deferring to an agency’s interpretation of the statute it administers).  Among other things, Professor Lietzan discussed her new paper on the impact of Loper Bright (available…

Oct. 21, 2025

Professor Lietzan presents on pharmaceutical evergreening

Professor and Associate Dean Erika Lietzan spoke at a conference hosted by the EIRA Initiative and the Berkeley Policy Institute.  At the conference, entitled “Bringing Medicines to Life: How IP Impacts Innovation in the Life Sciences,” Professor Lietzan presented a new book chapter entitled “Evergreening’s Empirical Chasm.”  For more than two decades, policymakers have been told that pharmaceutical innovators companies engage in a practice that is called, disparagingly, “evergreening.” The basic idea is that companies introduce new versions of their drugs that have later expiring patents or regulatory exclusivity. This way, the claim goes, the companies effectively…

Oct. 16, 2025

Professor Lietzan presents at two French conferences

Earlier in October, Professor Erika Lietzan spoke at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France at a conference on the Regulation of Innovative Medical Therapies.  She presented an overview of U.S. regulation of cellular therapies, engineered tissue products, and gene therapy, and talked about how U.S. regulation differs from EU regulation of these products.  The next day, Professor Lietzan spoke on the same topic at a much larger conference, known as Innovative Therapies Days, which took place in Besancon, France.  Professor Lietzan writes extensively about U.S. regulation of biological products, and has published before on how U.S. and EU…

Aug. 27, 2025

Associate Dean Lietzan named to Best Lawyers list

For the 11th straight year, Erika Lietzan, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, William H. Pittman Professor of Law & Timothy J. Heinsz Professor of Law at Mizzou Law, was named a Best Lawyer in FDA Law and for the 16th straight year as a Best Lawyer in Biotechnology & Life Sciences Law for 2025.

Aug. 14, 2025

Associate Dean Lietzan publishes essay on the FDA’s tobacco-authorization authority

Erika Lietzan, associate dean for research and faculty development, published in essay in The Regulatory Review discussing the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling in favor of the FDA’s tobacco-authorization authority. In her essay, Dean Lietzan discussed that the USSC’s unanimous ruling held the precedent that the FDA had authority to authorize or deny tobacco companies’ abilities to market their products. Click here to read her full essay.