Tag Archives: purdue pharma

Judge clears way for San Francisco’s ‘public nuisance’ opioid lawsuit to go to trial

Defendants, including Walgreens, Endo Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceuticals had tried to get the case thrown out.

(CN) — A federal judge on Thursday cleared the way for San Francisco’s opioid lawsuit against Walgreens and a number of pharmaceutical companies to head to trial, which is set to begin on April 25.

Thousands of states, cities and counties have sued pharmaceutical companies over their role in the opioid epidemic, which is believed to have been caused by the marketing and overprescription of prescription drugs like Oxycontin. Many patients who were prescribed an opiate later switched over to using illegal narcotics like heroin. According to the CDC, nearly half a million people died from opiate overdoses between 1999 and 2019.

The biggest culprit was Purdue Pharma, which manufactured and marketed Oxycontin, and which entered bankruptcy in 2020. That proceeding hit the pause button on all lawsuits against Purdue, and eventually lead to a massive settlement, in which cities and states will effectively take over ownership of Purdue. The former owners of the company, the Sackler family, contributed $6 billion to the settlement, a good deal of which went to the governmental entities, in exchange for immunity from future lawsuits.

The drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and three pharmaceutical distributors agreed to a $26 billion settlement with states and municipalities in February.

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Tennessee Supreme Court to decide if Big Pharma can be sued as drug dealers


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Drug makers are pushing the Tennessee Supreme Court to block a move by state prosecutors to hold Big Pharma financially accountable for the opioid epidemic, Knox News has learned.

Tennessee’s high court has now agreed to consider whether the state’s district attorneys general can sue opioid makers Endo Pharmaceuticals, Purdue Pharma, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceuticals using a law targeting drug dealers, according to an order made public Tuesday.

The high court is also allowing a coalition of corporate and insurance attorneys representing big business — the International Association of Defense Counsel — to weigh in, the order shows.

The court’s decision to take up the appeal comes in a lawsuit filed in Campbell County — one of the hardest hit in the opioid epidemic — against the opioid makers by 8th….

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Drug companies want to dismiss Ohio’s lawsuit over opioid epidemic

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio – Companies that make prescription opioids want a Ross County Common Pleas judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine that charged them with stoking Ohio’s opioid epidemic by fraudulently marketing their products.

Legal briefs filed by Purdue Pharma, which makes Oxycontin, say U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements for its products preempt Ohio law, and DeWine’s lawsuit also failed to prove the company’s actions caused the harm he cites.

“The State does not identify a single physician who prescribed one of Purdue’s opioid medications to any patient when it was allegedly medically unnecessary, much less, a physician who did so because of Purdue’s allegedly misleading marketing or promotional materials,” the company’s legal filings say.

Read Full – http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/09/drug_companies_want_to_dismiss.html

Ohio attorney general sues 5 pharmaceutical companies over opioid epidemic


The Ohio attorney general has filed a lawsuit against five leading prescription opioid manufacturers, alleging that the companies intentionally misled patients regarding the risks and benefits of opioid use with fraudulent marketing.

Attorney General Mike DeWine accused the companies of leading patients to believe that opioids were not addictive, which the lawsuit says fueled the current opioid epidemic in Ohio.

“We believe the evidence will also show that these companies got thousands and thousands of Ohioans — our friends, our family members, our co-workers, our kids — addicted to opioid pain medications, which has all too often led to use of the cheaper alternatives of heroin and synthetic opioids,” DeWine said in a statement. “These drug manufacturers led prescribers to believe that opioids were not addictive, that addiction was an easy thing to overcome, or that addiction could actually be treated by taking even more opioids.”

The five manufacturers listed in the lawsuit, filed in the Ross County Court of Common Pleas, are Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and its subsidiary Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Allergan.

The lawsuit was filed in Ross County since Southern Ohio was the area hit the hardest by the opioid epidemic, the press release states. A record of 3,050 people in Ohio died from drug overdose in 2015, The Associated Press reported. That figure is expected to rise significantly once the 2016 figures have been tallied, according to the AP.

The lawsuit alleges that the drug companies violated the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act and created a “public nuisance by disseminating false and misleading statements about the risks and benefits of opioids.”

Full Read – http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-attorney-general-sues-pharmaceutical-companies-opioid-epidemic/story?id=47750198

Drug company leaders should face prosecution, Oregon official says

William Theobald, USA Today 12:12 p.m. PST February 23, 2016

WASHINGTON – Drug company executives should be prosecuted for improper actions that contribute to the growth of opioid addiction, an Oregon assistant attorney general told a Senate committee Tuesday.

“We have to have more personal accountability of the executives who make these decisions,” David Hart testified at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee on the opioid addiction epidemic. “They can’t walk away with their stock options and their salaries.”

Hart, head of the Oregon attorney general’s health fraud unit, has led several investigations into improper marketing and promotion practices by pharmaceutical companies that make the highly addictive painkillers.

In response to questions from Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the committee, Hart also said the companies should be required to forfeit the profit they earn from their improper actions.

“We need to have these companies help clean up the messes they make,” Hart said.

He cited the state’s investigation of Insys, the maker of a painkiller called Subsys. Investigators alleged the company provided “improper financial incentives” to doctors to increase prescriptions, promoted the drug to doctors not qualified to prescribe it, and deceptively promoted its use for mild pain.

The company agreed to a voluntary settlement last August that included a $1.1 million payment, which Hart said amounted to two times its sales of the drug in the state of Oregon. The money is being used to fight opioid addiction.

Hart also was involved in a 2007 settlement among Oregon and 26 other state attorneys general and Purdue Pharma, after the company was accused of misrepresenting OxyContin’s risk of addiction.

Wyden said one common theme he heard during public meetings in Oregon last week on opioid abuse was a phenomenon he dubbed the “prescription pendulum.”

In past years, he said, doctors were criticized for not being aggressive enough in prescribing medication to manage severe pain. Now, the issue has swung the other way and doctors are being criticized for overprescribing pain killers.

Oregon ranked fourth among states in the rate of abuse of prescription painkillers, according to a 2013-2014 survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. That’s down from first among the states in the same 2010-2011 survey.

Between 2000 and 2013, there were 2,226 deaths in Oregon due to opioid overdoses. While the overdose death rate has dropped in recent years, in 2013 it was still nearly three times the rate in 2000.

“This epidemic is carving a path of destruction through communities all across the country,” Wyden said.

He said he worries policymakers are splitting into opposing camps: one focused on increasing enforcement and the other favoring more resources for treatment.

“What’s needed is a better approach that includes three things: more prevention, better treatment, and tougher enforcement,” Wyden said. “True success will require all three to work in tandem.”

The committee is expected to take up legislation soon that would allow for people in the Medicare program who are identified as at-risk for opioid addiction to be placed in a special program under which all of their prescriptions would be handled by one doctor and/or one pharmacy. Opioid abusers often will obtain multiple prescriptions for the painkillers.

In 2013, 3.6 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers were dispensed in Oregon, enough for nearly one prescription for every resident.