Category:

San Francisco's district attorney's office...announced the conviction and sentencing in a high-profile Walgreens theft from last May...Jean Lugo Romero, who pled guilty to felony grand theft and misdemeanor petty theft, was sentenced to 16 months in prison and one-year probation, according to District Attorney Chesa Boudin's office...The brazen incident was caught on video and became an early flash point in examples of viral videos touting crime running rampant in the city. Lugo Romero is seen grabbing items off the shelf from a now-permanently-closed Hayes Valley Walgreens store, placing them into a garbage bag and then riding a bicycle through the store, past an employee and a security guard, to make an escape through the front door...These types of videos have been used as ammunition against Boudin, who critics say is too lenient on crime. Boudin faces a recall election this summer. A recent poll suggests that recall effort has strong support...READ MORE

Attorney General Aaron Ford joined representatives from the state health department and several local governments...to announce that Nevada will soon receive its first installment of money from a pair of major opioid settlements and to highlight the urgency of using those dollars to address the opioid crisis...the state will receive $50 million from two settlements announced by the attorney general’s office earlier this year. The settlements include one with opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson that will bring Nevada $53.5 million and another with three of the nation’s largest drug distributors — AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — that will bring the state $231.7 million. Those funds add to the $45 million the state won last year through a settlement with consulting firm McKinsey & Company...READ MORE

Florida has reached more than $878 million in settlements with CVS Health Corp and three drug companies to resolve claims and avert a trial next month over their roles in fueling an opioid epidemic in the third most populous U.S. state...CVS will pay $484 million, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd will pay $194.8 million, Abbvie Inc's, Allergan unit will pay $134.2 million and Endo International Plc will pay $65 million, Florida's attorney general Ashley Moody said in a statement...Most of the money will be spent on opioid abatement. Teva will also provide $84 million of its generic Narcan nasal spray...READ MORE

Thirty five generic drugmakers around the world will make cheap versions of Pfizer Inc's highly effective COVID-19 oral antiviral Paxlovid to supply the treatment in 95 poorer countries, the U.N.-backed Medicines Patent Pool said...Pfizer struck a deal...with the group to allow generic drugmakers to make the pills for 95 low- and middle-income countries...Paxlovid is expected to be an important tool in the fight against COVID-19 after it reduced hospitalizations in high-risk patients...Merck, on its own and through the MPP license, has deals with dozens of drugmakers to make its pill...available in some countries...Read More

The leading U.S. drug enforcement agency issued an unprecedented warning to law enforcement nationwide to brace for a spike in “fentanyl-related mass-overdose” deaths as Mexican cartels push the drug into the United States...The Drug Enforcement Administration sent a letter to federal, state, and local law enforcement departments nationwide...alerting officials they should prepare not only for deaths caused by fentanyl to rise but also for mass-casualty events in which a group of people dies as a result of knowingly or unknowingly overdosing...READ MORE

With several efforts to resurrect American drug manufacturing already underway, congressional members on both sides of the aisle are setting their sights on one of the nation’s chief economic rivals...The Senate has signed off on innovation and competition legislation designed to boost American competitiveness, restore the country’s manufacturing base and curb its reliance on China for critical supplies—especially drugs and medical devices...The bill encourages the U.S., the EU and other European countries to work together on “joint strategies to diversify reliance on supply chains away from the People’s Republic of China,” and “especially” so in the medical and pharmaceutical fields...READ MORE

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled...that the state’s public records law does not require the disclosure of drug pricing information that could violate a federal trade secrets law, affirming a lower court ruling...Weighing laws and regulations that allow businesses to keep competitive records confidential, the court’s order limits the public release of information on high insulin prices, including the cost of producing diabetes drugs, administrative expenses and profits reaped by drug companies...The dispute over drug transparency records stems from a 2017 law...The statute required diabetes drug manufacturers and other companies involved in pricing, known as pharmacy benefit managers, to disclose information about pricing for insulin...READ MORE

Most of the defendants in Florida’s lawsuit over the opioid epidemic have settled for more than $870 million, according to the state attorney general. One remains: Walgreens Co. is not giving up...A jury has been seated in Pasco County, Florida, just north of Tampa, to hear the state’s case against Walgreens, a huge drug store chain with more than 9,000 outlets on streetcorners throughout the country. Opening statements are set for early next week...The Deerfield, Illinois-based company says it will not settle...“We are prepared for trial,” said Walgreens spokesman Fraser Engerman in an email...READ MORE

West Virginia's attorney general on Monday urged a judge to hold Johnson & Johnson , Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd, and AbbVie Inc's, Allergan liable for causing a "tsunami" of opioid addiction in the state...The addiction crisis has affected the state's police forces, hospitals, foster care system and jails, with effects that will linger for more than a generation, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said..."This epidemic has impacted virtually all of West Virginia," Morrisey said. "Our lawsuit speaks for all West Virginians who have suffered due to the defendants' unlawful, callous and destructive conduct."...READ MORE

Over the past few years, Jonny Griffis has invested millions of dollars in his legal marijuana farm in northern Michigan, which produces extracts to be used in things like gummy bears and vape oils...But now that farm — like many other licensed grows in states that have legalized marijuana — faces an existential threat: high-inducing cannabis compounds derived not from the heavily regulated and taxed legal marijuana industry, but from a chemical process involving less strictly regulated, cheaply grown hemp...At the center of the issue is THC, marijuana’s main intoxicating component. While marijuana and hemp are the same plant — cannabis — the distinction between the two is a legal one, and comes down to the amount of THC in the plant, specifically the amount of a type of THC called delta-9...People exploiting what they see as a loophole in the law have taken that hemp, extracted a non-intoxicating compound called CBD, and chemically changed it — generally by the addition of solvents and heat — into various types of impairing THC...READ MORE