Category:

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford filed a lawsuit...in Clark County District Court accusing dozens of drug manufacturers and distributors of propagating the state’s deadly opioid epidemic...The 241-page complaint names more than 40 defendants, including prescription drug makers such as Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals, and distributors including CVS, Walgreens and retail giant Walmart...It accuses drug manufacturers of pushing doctors to prescribe the addictive medication while downplaying the side effects. It also alleges that distributors supplied many more opioids than justified for the Nevada market, ignoring data that allowed them to track overprescribing...READ MORE

A unit of Insys Therapeutics Inc pleaded guilty...to fraud charges as part of an $225 million deal with the U.S. Justice Department resolving claims that the drugmaker bribed doctors to prescribe an addictive opioid medication...The plea...by the Chandler, Arizona-based Insys’ operating subsidiary, came in one of the few criminal prosecutions to date of a corporation accused of helping fuel the nation’s deadly opioid epidemic...Insys is facing growing financial pressures as a result of the U.S. probe and a decline in sales of its flagship fentanyl pain product, Subsys, which it has said could prompt the company to seek bankruptcy protection...Beyond the plea by subsidiary Insys Pharma Inc, Insys has also entered into a five-year deferred prosecution agreement with the government and agreed to pay $30 million in the criminal case and $195 million to resolve civil claims...READ MORE

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd said...it had agreed to pay an $85 million settlement with the state of Oklahoma days before the company was set to face trial over allegations that it and other drugmakers helped fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic...Claims against Teva focused on the branded opioid products Actiq and Fentora as well as generic painkillers it produced...The trial...was set to begin on Tuesday...Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter has alleged that J&J and Teva, along with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, carried out deceptive marking campaigns that downplayed opioids’ addictive risks while overstating their benefits...READ MORE

Opioid use has reached crisis proportions not only in the United States but also in Canada and some European countries, as prescription opioid painkillers have become much more common, the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)...said... nearly 400,000 people died of overdoses between 1999 and 2017...The Paris-based policy forum said deaths linked to opioid use were also rising sharply in Sweden, Norway, Ireland, and England and Wales...Canada reported more than 10,000 opioid-related deaths between January 2016 and September 2018, with rates increasing from 8.4 per 100,000 people to 11.8 over the period...Between 2011 and 2016, opioid-related deaths rose more than 20% in 25 member countries...READ MORE

Using data from privately-insured adults, new findings from The University of Texas...revealed that there is a lower level of opioids prescribed in states that have allowed the use of medical marijuana...We found that the overall prescription opioid use increased by age, which we expected. But, when we looked at the results within different age groups, opioid prescription rates varied depending on the stringency of state cannabis laws. In particular, states that implemented medical cannabis laws had lower rates of opioid prescription in people aged 18 to 54...Initially, opioids were seen as a way to ease pain and their use became widespread over time, with little attention paid to possible side effects or the risk of addiction...READ MORE

William Husel voluntarily surrendered to authorities in Columbus and was charged in 25 deaths following a six-month investigation by the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office. The patient deaths exposed a stunning case of medical oversight and alleged medical malpractice, and called into question how repeated failures potentially involving 30 or more employees could have gone unchecked for so long...Husel faces 15 years to life in prison per count if convicted. O'Brien said that the doses ordered by the doctor in the 25 deaths "could not support any legitimate medical purpose." Although nurses and pharmacists followed Husel's orders, the doctor remains the main focus of the criminal investigation...Also named in the various civil suits are the Mount Carmel Health System and some pharmacists and nurses. What remains unclear is how Husel could circumvent apparent rules that would require him to order medications through an in-house pharmacy team and then convince a nurse to administer the drug...READ MORE

Morris & Dickson Co, one of the largest U.S. wholesale drug distributors, agreed to pay $22 million in civil penalties to settle U.S. government charges that it failed to report thousands of suspicious orders of the opioids hydrocodone and oxycodone...The...Louisiana-based company will also spend millions of dollars to hire staff and upgrade oversight to help comply with federal regulations requiring that orders be properly reported...Drug Enforcement Administration...since...2014 uncovered more than 12,000 retail pharmacy orders for hydrocodone and oxycodone that Morris & Dickson should have flagged to that agency...READ MORE

The 2014 study found that between 1999 and 2010, states with medical cannabis laws had a nearly 25% lower average rate of opioid overdose deaths than states without such laws. Much has changed since 2010 — 34 states have now legalized medical marijuana and the number of opioid overdose deaths was six times higher in 2017 than it was in 1999 — so Stanford University researchers decided to replicate the original study...But when they expanded the time frame through 2017, the association between medical marijuana laws and opioid overdose deaths reversed: States with medical marijuana laws had average rates of opioid overdose deaths that were nearly 23% higher than those without these laws...READ MORE

Illicit chemical knock-offs of the extremely potent opioid fentanyl would be put permanently in the same legal class as heroin to boost prosecutions of traffickers and makers of the drugs, under a proposal to be unveiled...by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration...The new classification is meant to help fight a proliferation of chemical look-alikes of fentanyl, known as analogues...DEA Acting Chief Operations Officer Greg Cherundolo is set to go before a Senate committee...to propose that Congress make the measure permanent so that cases against various analogues will not be undercut when the temporary ban lapses...READ MORE

Five U.S. states...filed lawsuits accusing Purdue Pharma LP of illegally marketing and selling opioids, escalating the wave of litigation over a nationwide abuse epidemic...Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, West Virginia and Wisconsin joined 39 states to file lawsuits targeting Purdue Pharma and its leaders, including former president Richard Sackler and his family...Officials accused Purdue Pharma of repeatedly making false and deceptive claims that opioids...were safe for a wide range of patients seeking to reduce pain...READ MORE