Category:

After years of facing allegations of price-fixing on a massive scale, Teva Pharmaceuticals has agreed to settle with the state of Mississippi for $925,000. That "modest" sum could be just the tip of the iceberg...The case dates back to 2019 when Mississippi, along with 43 other states, sued 20 generic drugmakers for divvying up markets and setting prices...it seems states are breaking away from the coordinated effort. Teva’s Mississippi settlement, filed in Pennsylvania federal court on Monday, marks the first agreement the Israeli drugmaker has inked as part of the larger price-fixing debacle...READ MORE

A California jury has cleared CVS in a years-long lawsuit alleging the pharmacy giant overcharged them by more than $121 million for generic drugs...A group of insured pharmacy customers in six states filed suit against CVS Pharmacy in 2015, claiming that the company overcharged them and their insurers for generic drugs while charging low, flat-fee prices through a discount program for cash-pay customers...A federal jury in the court for the Northern District of California unanimously determined...day that the pharmacy chain did not violate statutes in the six states with its Health Savings Pass program...READ MORE

The U.S. Supreme Court...declined to hear Johnson & Johnson’s bid to overturn a $2.12 billion damages award to women who blamed their ovarian cancer on asbestos in the company’s baby powder and other talc products ...The justices turned away a J&J appeal and left in place a Missouri state court ruling in litigation brought by 22 women whose claims were heard together in one trial...READ MORE

Denying organ transplants for people with intellectual and physical disabilities is considered illegal under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, but disability rights advocates say a lack of enforcement means the law isn’t being fully followed throughout the United States...Nevada lawmakers are looking to beef up that section of law this session — during an Assembly Health and Human Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Scott Hammond (R-Las Vegas) presented his bill SB305 that would prohibit medical providers from denying access to organ transplants based on disability status..."We are attempting to ensure people with disabilities, whether intellectual or cognitive, are not denied an organ transplant because of their disability," Hammond said...READ MORE

Generic giant Mylan has faced a slew of lawsuits targeting its EpiPen marketing strategies. Now known as Viatris, the drugmaker says it's scored a win against serious charges in an antitrust case that's been running for several years...The case dates back to 2017 when the plaintiffs...charged Mylan with a number of anticompetitive strategies to build and maintain its EpiPen empire...Mylan also paid excessive rebates to pharmacy benefit managers, commercial payers and state Medicaid programs as long as they didn't reimburse competing products, plaintiffs said. They further cited the well-known and dramatic price hikes Mylan implemented over the years...READ MORE

On December 30, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services issued an advisory opinion on the 340B Program...This program limits the prices drug manufacturers can charge for therapies sold to specific healthcare facilities, including public hospitals and community health centers. The opinion was designed to address whether drugmakers could refuse to sell drugs to those pharmacies at the “ceiling price.”...AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi turned around and sued HHS over the issue...HHS responded saying it “never intended to do what plaintiffs in those suits allege: to create new, binding obligations on plaintiffs or to serve as the predicate for enforcement against those plaintiffs.”...READ MORE

Bayer’s efforts to put an end to the consuming Roundup litigation have hit a wall, raising uncertainties over the weedkiller’s future and its impact on the German conglomerate’s financial position...A U.S. federal judge in San Francisco...rejected Bayer’s already revised $2 billion proposal to settle potential future lawsuits alleging Roundup causes cancer. The deal would have put a halt to litigation over four years, during which time eligible plaintiffs could have received compensation of up to $200,000 each...READ MORE

Johnson & Johnson has reached a $230m agreement to settle an opioid lawsuit brought by the attorney general of New York state...“Johnson & Johnson helped fuel this fire, but today they’re committing to leaving the opioid business – not only in New York, but across the entire country...READ MORE

Bristol Myers Squibb Co was sued for $6.4 billion...allegedly delaying its Breyanzi cancer drug to avoid payments to shareholders of the former Celgene Corp, which the drugmaker bought in 2019...According to a complaint in Manhattan federal court, Bristol Myers failed to use contractually required "diligent efforts" to win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the non-Hodgkin lymphoma drug by a Dec. 31, 2020, deadline...By missing the deadline, Bristol Myers was excused from owing an additional $9 in cash to Celgene shareholders for each share they held, enabling it to acquire Celgene at an "enormous discount" and enjoy a "windfall," the complaint said...READ MORE

Eli Lilly is asking a federal court to stop the federal government from imposing any penalties over its decision to restrict sales of 340B-discounted products to contract pharmacies...The request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order...comes less than a week after the Health Resources and Services Administration wrote to Lilly and five other drug companies over the contract pharmacy restrictions...The injunction and order show that drug companies appear likely to fight HRSA’s order to immediately offer 340B-discounted drugs to contract pharmacies, which are third-party entities that dispense drugs on behalf of the 340B covered entities...READ MORE