A federal judge granted Baxter‘s (NYSE:BAX) bid to force an FDA official to testify in the multi-district litigation accusing it of taking part in a price-fixing scheme for plasma therapy.

Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Dr. Jay Epstein, director of the FDA’s Office of Blood Research & Review, must testify in the case, according to court documents.

"FDA shall make Dr. Jay Epstein available to testify for 1 day of 7 hours,” Contreras wrote. “Defendants shall not subpoena any other FDA witness for deposition testimony or seek any documents from FDA related to the underlying in re Plasma Derivatives Protein Therapies Antitrust Litigation."

A group of hospitals sued Baxter, CSL Ltd. and CSL Behring LLC and the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Assoc. in 2009, accusing them of conspiring to keep the price of plasma therapy artificially high by constraining production beginning in 2003.

The MDL is being tried in the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois.

Contreras also dismissed with prejudice Baxter’s and CSL’s lawsuit against the FDA seeking to force its testimony, according to the documents.