Mealey's Drugs & Devices
-
March 23, 2021
Consultant McKinsey Pays $45M To Settle Nevada’s Deceptive Trade Practices Suit
CARSON CITY, Nev. — Consulting company McKinsey & Co. Inc. on March 22 agreed to pay $45 million to settle a complaint by the state of Nevada for alleged violations of the state’s deceptive trade practices law through McKinsey’s involvement in the marketing of the opioid OxyContin and the resulting opioids addiction epidemic.
-
March 22, 2021
Judge In Biocell Breast Implant MDL Says Some Claims Preempted, Others Aren’t
TRENTON, N.J. — The New Jersey federal judge presiding over the Allergan Biocell breast implant cancer multidistrict litigation on March 19 granted in part and denied in part defendant Allergan Inc.’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims as preempted by federal law.
-
March 17, 2021
Insurer Files Class Action Against Shkreli, Others For Daraprim Monopoly
NEW YORK — Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (BCBSM) on March 4 filed a nationwide class action against two drug companies and two former executives, including Martin Shkreli, in Pennsylvania federal court, alleging that the defendants conspired to create and maintain a monopoly for the drug Daraprim and to raise the drug’s price from $17.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet.
-
March 17, 2021
Doctor, 3 Others Indicted For Falsifying Data For Opioid, IBS, Kidney Drug Studies
MIAMI — A Florida doctor and three other persons were indicted Feb. 23 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly fabricating clinical trial data for three drugs, according to the charging document unsealed March 8.
-
March 17, 2021
Minnesota’s RICO, False Advertising Claims Dismissed In Insulin Price Suit
TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge on March 12 granted a motion by three insulin makers to dismiss with prejudice claims by the Minnesota attorney general that the defendants violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S. Code. §§ 1961–1968, and engaged in false advertising in their pricing of their drugs.
-
March 17, 2021
Mass Tort Cases For Drugs, Medical Devices
New developments in the following mass tort drug and device cases are marked in boldface type.
-
March 17, 2021
Purdue Pharma Consultant McKinsey Seeks Separate MDL For Cases Filed Against It
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Consulting company McKinsey & Co. on March 5 asked the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) to centralize 17 federal lawsuits to a new multidistrict litigation and to not send the cases to the opioids MDL in an Ohio federal court.
-
March 16, 2021
Purdue Pharma Files New Bankruptcy Plan Listing Billions For Claims
NEW YORK — OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma L.P. and related companies on March 15 filed a joint Chapter 11 plan of reorganization in a New York federal bankruptcy court that lists billions of dollars to pay claims by the U.S. Justice Department, Native American tribes, hospitals, third-party payers, “opioid babies” and persons claiming personal injuries from addiction to OxyContin.
-
March 16, 2021
Judge Denies Preemption Dismissal Of Medtronic Drug Pump Lawsuit
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia federal judge on March 11 denied a motion by medical device maker Medtronic Inc. to dismiss as preempted a plaintiff’s claim that an implantable drug pump was defectively manufactured, resulting in the plaintiff suffering drug opioid withdrawal symptoms.
-
March 16, 2021
1st Theranos Fraud Trial Delay Sought Due To Elizabeth Holmes’ Pregnancy
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Federal prosecutors and defense counsel for former Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes on March 12 asked a California federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to reschedule Holmes’ fraud trial to Aug. 21 because she is pregnant and is expected to deliver in July, the month of the most recent trial date, according to a joint status report filed with the court.
-
March 15, 2021
Union’s Acthar Price Suit Transferred To Mallinckrodt’s Delaware Bankruptcy Court
PHILADELPHIA — Two days after a Pennsylvania federal judge on March 10 transferred a union’s Acthar Gel drug price complaint against drug maker Mallinckrodt ARD Inc. to a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, the union joined a March 12 motion filed with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) to centralize 10 similar price cases in a federal multidistrict litigation (MDL).
-
March 15, 2021
Plaintiffs’ Co-Lead Counsel In Biomet Hip MDL Sanctioned By Judge
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The Indiana federal judge overseeing the Biomet M2a Magnum metal-on-metal hip multidistrict litigation on March 11 ordered the plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel to pay fees and costs incurred by defendant Biomet Inc. in bringing a motion for sanctions for violating the court’s order on common discovery as it applied to two plaintiff cases.
-
March 12, 2021
Securities Claims Against Drug Maker, CEO Survive Dismissal Bid
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York on March 10 partially granted a motion to dismiss in a securities class action lawsuit against a biopharmaceutical company and certain of its current and former senior executives, ruling that a pension plan has sufficiently pleaded its federal securities law claims against the company’s CEO and the company but has failed to properly plead scienter with regard to the remaining defendants.
-
March 11, 2021
Judge Dismisses Securities Claims As Lacking In Drug Company’s Stock-Drop Suit
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California on March 10 granted a motion to dismiss in a securities class action lawsuit alleging that a drug maker, certain of its senior executives and directors and underwriters of a secondary public offering misrepresented the expected sales and usage of the company’s coagulant drug in violation of federal securities laws because the shareholders failed to sufficiently show how the defendants’ alleged misstatements support the securities fraud claims.
-
March 11, 2021
Medical Records Sales Exec Pleads Guilty To Obstructing Federal Opioids Probe
BURLINGTON, Vt. — A former national sales director for electronic medical records company Practice Fusion Inc. on March 8 pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to obstruct a federal investigation of Practice Fusion and OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP by destroying records.
-
March 03, 2021
Scienter Allegations Now Sufficient In Specialty Drug Maker’s Stock-Drop Suit
PHILADELPHIA — In denying a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim for relief, a federal judge in Pennsylvania on March 1 ruled that the lead plaintiff in a securities class action against a specialty pharmaceutical company and three of its senior executives has sufficiently pleaded scienter in alleging that the defendants acted with the required state of mind in misrepresenting the efficacy and manufacturing quality control for the development of the company’s non-opioid therapeutic drug candidate.
-
March 03, 2021
New Jersey Appeals Court Reverses $83M Pelvic Mesh Verdicts On ‘510(k) Defense’
TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey state appeals panel on March 2 reversed two pelvic mesh verdicts totaling $83 million and ordered new trials after finding that the separate judges erred in excluding the “510(k) defense” from the defendants’ case.
-
March 02, 2021
Mass Tort Cases For Drugs, Medical Devices
New developments in the following mass tort drug and device cases are marked in boldface type.
-
March 02, 2021
Judge: 9-Year-Old Pelvic Mesh Trial Won’t Wait, Will Be Tried By Videoconference
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A Kansas federal judge on Feb. 8 decided that a nine-year-old pelvic mesh case will be tried April 20 by videoconference rather than line up behind a criminal case backlog that he said might take years to clear.
-
March 02, 2021
Multicounty Litigation Weighed For Tasigna Artery Injury Cases In New Jersey
TRENTON, N.J. — The New Jersey Supreme Court on Feb. 9 published a notice that it has received an application to create a multicounty litigation (MCL) for cases alleging atherosclerotic injury from the chemotherapy drug Tasigna and asked interested parties to respond by March 9.