Preview Newsletter
Opioid Litigation Media Report 10/19/17
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‘Drug Dealers in Lab Coats’ (OPINION)
Oct 18, 2017 | New York Times
By Nicholas Kristof
For decades, America has waged an ineffective war on drug pushers and drug lords, from Bronx street corners to Medellin, Colombia, regarding them as among the most contemptible specimens of humanity. -
Pharma leaders: Heroes, and villains?
Oct 19, 2017 | Philadelphia Inquirer
By Joseph N. Destefano
It’s autumn, when Jefferson Health honors successful business people who give it money at its yearly Award of Merit dinner. Past honorees include real estate investor Ira Lubert, Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus, and SAP boss Bill McDermott. On Nov. 28, it will be Alex Gorsky, CEO at Johnson & Johnson. -
Issues That Matter: How state attorneys general are tackling the opioid crisis (VIDEO)
Oct 18, 2017 | CBS This Morning
As part of our ongoing series, Issues That Matter, we take a closer look at America's opioid crisis with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. He called out drug companies for being the "supply chain" that enabled the epidemic and Congress for their lack of action against those companies. View clip here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pennsylvania-attorney-general-josh-shapiro-issues-that-matter/ -
Big Pharma's opioid mess is about to hit the industry—hard
Oct 18, 2017 | CNBC
By Jake Novak
Big pharma has been rocked by scandal over the past two years. From price hikes for the EpiPen to the exploits of "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli, the specter of big drug companies gouging the public has put the entire industry under a cloud. -
‘60 Minutes’ takes aim at the pharmaceutical industry in opioid epidemic
Oct 19, 2017 | Packaging World
By Jim Butschli
“Opioids could kill nearly 500,000 Americans in the next decade,” screamed the headline in a June 27, 2017 StatNews story. -
Lawyer who took on tobacco industry now turning to big drug manufacturers (VIDEO)
Oct 19, 2017 | CBS Evening News
By Mark Strassman
The opioid epidemic is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year -- and one attorney is fighting it in court. View clip here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lawyer-who-took-on-tobacco-industry-turns-to-big-drug-manufacturers-opioids/ -
Chicago Seeks Janssen Employees' Info In Opioid Suit
Oct 18, 2017 | Law360
By Emily Field
The city of Chicago on Tuesday told an Illinois federal judge that 10 Janssen employees likely have documents related to the city’s claims that the drug company and others misleadingly marketed opioids and the city should be allowed to seek those documents. -
Hillsborough Commissioners consider suing big pharma
Oct 18, 2017 | News Channel 8 (FL)
By Meredyth Consullo
Hillsborough County may take the first step in a legal showdown against pharmaceutical companies. County commissioners may launch an investigation into the manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids, as well as, heroin and fentanyl. -
Wisconsin Counties Join Lawsuit Against Opioid Drug Manufacturers
Oct 18, 2017 | WPR (WI)
By Rich Kremer
A growing number of counties are joining a lawsuit against opioid drug manufacturers with the goal of recovering local costs of dealing with what's been called a prescription drug epidemic. -
Drug companies being blamed for Opioid epidemic
Oct 18, 2017 | WBRC (AL)
By Hannah Ward
The opioid epidemic continues to cripple counties across the country. Now the blame is being shifted to the big drug companies. Recently, Etowah County announced a lawsuit against three drug companies they say are fueling the epidemic. Some even go as far as calling it legal drug dealing. -
How OxyContin’s maker tried to influence Trump’s opioid commission
Oct 18, 2017 | Vice News
By Keegan Hamilton
A top executive at Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the painkiller OxyContin, met with a member of the commission created by President Donald Trump to advise his administration on the opioid epidemic, according to documents obtained by VICE News. During the June meeting, the executive offered suggestions on how to fix a crisis the drugmaker has been widely blamed for creating. -
Ohio Gubernatorial candidate proposing surcharge on opioids
Oct 19, 2017 | Associated Press
A Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio says she would force drug manufacturers to pay a nickel-per-dose surcharge on prescription opioids sold in the state in an effort to help solve the opioid problem.
Pharmaceutical Industry-Focused Coverage
Litigation-Focused Coverage
Other Relevant Coverage
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‘Drug Dealers in Lab Coats’ (OPINION)
Oct 18, 2017 | New York Times
By Nicholas Kristof
For decades, America has waged an ineffective war on drug pushers and drug lords, from Bronx street corners to Medellin, Colombia, regarding them as among the most contemptible specimens of humanity.
One reason our efforts have failed is we ignored the biggest drug pushers of all: American pharmaceutical companies.
Our policy was: You get 15 people hooked on opioids, and you’re a thug who deserves to rot in hell; you get 150,000 people hooked, and you’re a marketing genius who deserves a huge bonus.
Big Pharma should be writhing in embarrassment this week after The Washington Post and “60 Minutes” reported that pharmaceutical lobbyists had manipulated Congress to hamstring the Drug Enforcement Administration. But the abuse goes far beyond that: The industry systematically manipulated the entire country for 25 years, and its executives are responsible for many of the 64,000 deaths of Americans last year from drugs — more than the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam and Iraq wars combined.
The opioid crisis unfolded because greedy people — Latin drug lords and American pharma executives alike — lost their humanity when they saw the astounding profits that could be made.
It used to be in America that people became addicted to opioids through illegal drugs. In the 1960s, for example, 80 percent of Americans hooked on opioids began with heroin.
That has completely changed. Today, 75 percent of people with opioid addictions began with prescription painkillers. The slide starts not on a street corner, but in a doctor’s office.
That’s because pharmaceutical companies in the 1990s sought to promote opioid painkillers as new blockbuster drugs. Company executives accused doctors of often undertreating pain (there was something to this, but pharma executives contrived to turn it into a crisis that they could monetize). The companies backed front organizations like the American Pain Foundation, which purported to speak on behalf of suffering patients.
These front organizations, as well as professionals sometimes funded by the pharmaceutical industry, heralded pain as the “fifth vital sign,” along with pulse, temperature, respiratory rate and blood pressure. The opioid promoters hailed opioids as “safe and effective,” and they particularly encouraged opioids for returning veterans — one reason so many veterans have suffered addictions.
Pharma companies spent heavily advertising opioids — $14 million in medical journals in 2011 alone, almost triple what they had spent in 2001 and pitched them for a wide range of chronic pains, such as arthritis and back pain.
Companies even argued that signs of addiction were a reason to prescribe more opioids. Endo Pharmaceuticals distributed a book suggesting that when a patient showed strange behavior, “the clinician’s first response” should be to increase the dose of opioids.
Several of these examples come from a lawsuit by Ohio against major pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue, Teva, Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson and Janssen. A company affiliated with Purdue pleaded guilty of felony fraud in connection with its marketing of OxyContin, but none of its executives went to prison.
Drug companies employed roughly the same strategy as street-corner pushers: Get somebody hooked and business will take care of itself. So last year, Americans received 236 million opioid prescriptions — that’s about one bottle for every adult.
A Senate investigation found that one company, Insys Therapeutics, successfully redirected a powerful opioid called Subsys, meant for cancer pain, to patients without cancer. Sarah Fuller, a woman with neck and back pain, was prescribed Subsys by her doctor, who received payments from Insys.
Fuller died of an overdose of Subsys.
Meanwhile, Insys had the best-performing initial public offering in 2013, and revenue tripled in the next two years, the Senate report said. Likewise, the Sackler family, owner of the company that makes OxyContin, joined Forbes’s list of richest American families in 2015, with $14 billion.
It’s maddening that the public narrative is still often about an opioid crisis fueled by the personal weakness and irresponsibility of users. No, it’s fueled primarily by the greed and irresponsibility of drug lords — including the kind who inhabit executive suites. The Washington Post quoted a former D.E.A. official as referring to pharmaceutical company representatives as “drug dealers in lab coats.”
I was invited the other day to a gala honoring the C.E.O. of one of these pharma companies for his moral leadership. I wanted to throw up. Since 2000, more than 200,000 Americans have died from overdoses of prescription opioids — the consequence of a deliberate strategy to make money by ignoring public welfare.
Our pattern of opioid addiction points to a tragedy, driven by the greed of some of America’s leading companies and business executives, systematically manipulating doctors and patients and killing people on a scale that terrorists could never dream of.
There’s a lot of talk in the Trump administration about lifting regulations to free up the dynamism of corporations. Really? You want to see the consequences of unfettered pharma? Go visit a cemetery.
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Pharma leaders: Heroes, and villains?
Oct 19, 2017 | Philadelphia Inquirer
By Joseph N. Destefano
It’s autumn, when Jefferson Health honors successful business people who give it money at its yearly Award of Merit dinner. Past honorees include real estate investor Ira Lubert, Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus, and SAP boss Bill McDermott. On Nov. 28, it will be Alex Gorsky, CEO at Johnson & Johnson.
Premier teaching hospital honors pharma leader: a good Philly story. Gorsky has won other honors, and Wall Street’s approval: Johnson & Johnson shares topped $140 for the first time last week, on higher-than-expected profits.
But this fall, the painkiller business is deep into another of America’s lethal opioid cycles, reminding us how powerful drugs also kill. And that other Philadelphia business, the plaintiffs bar, is seeking millions for aggrieved drug survivors. So even good-deed doers are getting extra scrutiny.
Under Gorsky, J&J has been generous to medical, nursing, health-economics, “outcomes” research, and clinical trials, said Jefferson spokeswoman Gail Benner. Jefferson wouldn’t total what it has collected from J&J, which reported $17 billion in profits on $72 billion in sales last year, or from Gorsky, who was paid $25 million in cash and stock. Jeff gave Gorsky an honorary degree three years back.
“It’s beyond disgusting” that one of Philadelphia’s noted medical research organizations is honoring Gorsky, said Steven Sheller, a Philadelphia attorney. (His honorary degree is from Drexel). Sheller has sued J&J and other drugmakers, accusing them of selling medicine for unapproved uses, overstating benefits, hiding risks, and hurting patients.
Writer and lawyer Steven Brill, in his 2015 report “America’s Most Honored Lawbreaker,” traced Gorsky’s years overseeing the marketing of Risperdal, the J&J anti-psychotic drug whose sales topped $3 billion per year in the early 2000s. In 2013, the company agreed to pay $2.2 billion to settle civil and criminal charges with the Justice Department and 45 states. Justice said the company pushed Risperdal and two other drugs “for uses not approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration,” including for autistic children and dementia patients, and paid “kickbacks” to doctors and pharmacy officials. The deal “allows us to move forward,” the company said at the time.
“The Houdini act that enabled Gorsky, the then-Risperdal sales manager, not only to escape responsibility but also to be promoted to the top of his industry’s most admired company raises equally significant questions about the standards of conduct we can expect from those who run what is becoming the world’s most powerful industry, and about how much we can rely on the medicines they sell,” Brill wrote. Actor George Clooney’s production company plans a movie of Brill’s story.
In 2015, lawyers including Sheller won a $70 million award against J&J for pushing unapproved Risperdal on boys whose families said they developed breasts. That decision is under appeal. J&J appeals have reversed multimillion-dollar Risperdal judgments in other states.
Government investigations and product-liability lawsuits filled 13 pages in J&J’s last annual report — so many the company says it is “not feasible” to predict what it will pay for damages or defense lawyers.
J&J isn’t the only big area drugmaker whose market success and generous acts have been complicated by questions about patients and profits.
Cephalon (now part of Israel-based Teva), which was founded by the late, much-admired Frank Baldino, illegally marketed sugary Actiq opioid lollipops to people with migraines and wounds and other unapproved users, according to an FDA complaint the company settled for $425 million in 2008. Nine years later, the company is defending itself against more recent suits by Ohio, Chicago, and 18 other states and cities alleging failure to protect Actiq users from addiction.
Shares of Irish-owned Endo Pharmaceuticals soared in the early 2000s after quadrupling sales of painkiller Percocet and modernizing its former, much-abused opioid Numorphan under the new Opana brand. Carol Ammon, who led the team that spun the company off from DuPont and boosted painkiller sales, retired in 2005 after collecting stock options worth more than $200 million. She became a philanthropist; Jefferson and Christiana Health named facilities for her. Ammon helped Christiana “greatly increase access to care,” said Christiana spokesman Hiran Ratnayake.
But Endo shares lost most of their value as its painkiller sales fell under new opioid restrictions. The company is under investigation in New Jersey and at least five other states, and is being sued by Ohio, Chicago, and at least nine other state and local governments that say Endo knew or should have known its painkillers would be readily, fatally, and extensively abused. Endo told investors it is “cooperating” with investigators, and “vigorously” fighting lawsuits.
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Issues That Matter: How state attorneys general are tackling the opioid crisis (VIDEO)
Oct 18, 2017 | CBS This Morning
View clip here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pennsylvania-attorney-general-josh-shapiro-issues-that-matter/
As part of our ongoing series, Issues That Matter, we take a closer look at America's opioid crisis with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. He called out drug companies for being the "supply chain" that enabled the epidemic and Congress for their lack of action against those companies.
"We are undeterred – unlike the folks in Congress – we are undeterred by these big pharmaceutical lobbyists and all the money they throw around," Shapiro told "CBS This Morning."
Forty-one attorneys general around the country including Shapiro have subpoenaed drug companies for information and documents to understand how opioid medications are made, marketed and distributed. An average of 13 people die of overdoses every day in his state alone.
"This crisis is of epic proportion. We're losing – we lost 6,000 Pennsylvanians last year, tens of thousands more across this country. I've had moms and dads in my arms crying over the loss of their loved ones," Shapiro said.
Pennsylvania Congressman Tom Marino withdrew his name Tuesday from consideration as the next drug czar following an investigation by "60 Minutes" and the Washington Post into a law he sponsored. A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) whistleblower said the law made enforcement of suspicious opioid distributions more difficult.
"It was important journalism – it was shocking journalism for a lot of people. It didn't surprise us a whole lot but it really put an exclamation point on the work we're doing," he said.
Shapiro said they're looking into drug companies because they are the "supply chain" fueling the opioid epidemic.
"Look, 80 percent of heroin users start with a legal prescription drug," he said. "I think what disturbs me most is just how reckless and callous they've been. It seems like they just want to turn a profit and they're willing to put these highly-addictive medications out there, seemingly turning a blind eye to the fact that these pills are being dumped in communities."
One of the distribution companies named in the "60 Minutes"-Washington Post investigation is Cardinal Health. In a statement to CBS News they said, "We maintain a sophisticated, state-of-the-art program to identify, block and report to regulators those orders of prescription controlled medications that do not meet our strict criteria."
Asked if distributors are breaking any laws, Shapiro said "potentially" and elaborated with an example of the type of behavior they are looking into.
"You have a pharmacy somewhere in central Pennsylvania and they're sending a thousand of these highly-addictive oxycodones to that pharmacy each month and then all of a sudden it's 10,000 and 50,000 and 100,000 pills. You know, there's a responsibility on these distributors to actually look into that, to flag it and report," he explained.
Another target for Shapiro is some of the doctors who are excessively prescribing the pills.
"We've doubled the number of arrests of doctors in my office in Pennsylvania who are diverting or taking these legal pills and using them for unlawful uses," he said.
Shapiro is confident that he has both the moral force and the legal ground to go after the companies.
"We certainly have the moral force and we have plenty of laws in our states that are going to enable us to hold these folks accountable, recover for our respective states and then make sure most importantly we change corporate behavior. We cannot continue to lose the lives we're losing in the United States of America and the pharmaceutical industry has an important role in this process and we're gonna hold them accountable."
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Big Pharma's opioid mess is about to hit the industry—hard
Oct 18, 2017 | CNBC
By Jake Novak
Big pharma has been rocked by scandal over the past two years. From price hikes for the EpiPen to the exploits of "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli, the specter of big drug companies gouging the public has put the entire industry under a cloud.
But that's nothing compared to what the industry is about to face once President Donald Trump declares the opioid crisis to be a national emergency, as he's expected to do next week.
The focus on opioids and the political lobbying efforts that helped make these dangerous drugs so prevalent in America has already cost Congressman Tom Marino his shot to become the nation's new drug czar. He was forced to withdraw just two days after a story was published describing Marino as the "chief advocate" for a 2016 law that hobbled Drug Enforcement Administration efforts to fight the distribution of prescription narcotics.
In other words, the opioid controversy is already very potent politically. But the biggest impact on the business world is yet to come. To give you an idea of how much it can hurt, just the announcement in March of a Senate committee probe into the biggest opioid makers sent all their share prices down on the day, some of them by more than one percent.
It's still not exactly clear what the emergency declaration would do from a pure policy standpoint. But in essence, the declaration would free up more avenues of funding to help states and cities deal with opioid addicts with various treatments.
So let's look at some of the potential pitfalls and who needs to be most worried.
The declaration's real impact will be first to raise already strong awareness of the immensity of the problem and then to transform the response from sorrow to outrage.
The facts are staggering. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, drug overdose has become the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., driven by the opioid epidemic. Of the 52,404 lethal drug overdoses in 2015, 20,101 of them were related to prescription pain relievers. In 2012 alone, 259 million prescriptions were written for opioids, which is more than enough to give every American adult their own bottle of pills.
President Trump could use the emergency declaration and the resulting outrage to push Attorney General Jeff Sessions to join and support the growing number of states and cities suing the drug companies, drug distributors and even drug store chains over opioid sales. That would give those cases the full weight and financial resources of the Justice Department and increase the chances of a big settlement.
And it gets worse. The lawsuits popping up in statehouses across the country blame the pharmaceutical industry for fueling this crisis with misleading data and a just plain unethical push to convince doctors to prescribe opioids in huge numbers. Mylan , Johnson & Johnson , and Teva Pharmaceuticals seem to know very well they are selling far more of their product than can be reasonably used to fight pain legitimately.
And as mentioned above, it's not just the drug makers. CVS , Walgreens , and Walmart and drug distributors like McKesson and Cardinal Health have also been named in some lawsuits for flooding certain areas of the country with opioid supplies purely for profit reasons and not because of higher instances of physical pain in those regions.
How much could this end up costing all these companies? In addition to the stock price hits mentioned above, many are comparing the drug company and drug distributor conduct on this issue to the way big tobacco covered up evidence of nicotine's addictive powers. The tobacco companies ended up paying dearly for that, to the tune of $206 billion dollars over the first 25 years of a settlement it made with the attorneys general of 46 states in 1998.
So many states are dealing with the enormous cost of treating opioid addiction and the tangential costs of fighting other crimes connected to it, that they have little or nothing to lose in fighting for as hefty a settlement as possible. And a national emergency declaration could go a long way toward getting more juries and judges on the side of the plaintiffs in court or a settlement battle.
When he was first elected, President Trump injected some fear into the hearts of the drug industry when he promised to do something about high drug prices. He even repeated that attack on the pharma companies earlier this week. But this emergency declaration could be more harmful than price controls. Because caregivers were pushed so hard by pharma reps and others to dole out opioids, the entire industry's practice of heavily lobbying doctors and hospitals to prescribe certain drugs could be severely curbed with new regulations. That would mess with a business model that has enriched the industry for years, not unlike the way curbing tobacco advertising has disrupted the cigarette makers over the past 47 years.
Even before the opioid crisis began, many critics inside the medical community called for a stop to the drug company sales tactics. And just to give you an idea of how much the drug industry values sales and advertising, the fact is that Big Pharma spends more on that than on actual drug research and development.
But before you get out your pitchfork and torch, remember that we're not talking about an industry without inherent value to society. The drug companies still sell life-saving products to millions of people every day. Putting them out of business or severely regulating them could lead to shortages and a significant slowdown in the discovery of newer and better treatments.
The best case scenario is putting a cap on the number of opioids available to the public, punishing those found to have deliberately flooded the market, and taking a serious look at cutting out the harmful aspects of drug sales practices.
Of course, the government's track record of acting that wisely and avoiding throwing the baby out with the bathwater in crisis situations is just plain bad. That's true no matter what party or president controls Congress or sits in the Oval Office. It's that kind of history that should leave the drug industry shaking with real worry right now.
But I guess they have a drug for that.
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‘60 Minutes’ takes aim at the pharmaceutical industry in opioid epidemic
Oct 19, 2017 | Packaging World
By Jim Butschli
“Opioids could kill nearly 500,000 Americans in the next decade,” screamed the headline in a June 27, 2017 StatNews story.
The New York Times said recently, “The first government account of nationwide drug deaths shows roughly 64,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016. The death count is the latest consequence of an escalating public health crisis: opioid addition, now made more deadly by an influx of illicitly manufactured fentanyl and similar drugs.”
The epidemic was the subject of a scathing report and investigation by the TV show and the Washington Post on the pharmaceutical industry—and in particular pharma distributors—on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” Oct. 15 report, “Ex-DEA Agent: Opioid Crisis Fueled By Drug Industry And Congress.”
The television/online story said, “In the midst of the worst drug epidemic in American history, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's ability to keep addictive opioids off U.S. streets was derailed—that according to Joe Rannazzisi, one of the most important whistleblowers ever interviewed by 60 Minutes. Rannazzisi ran the DEA's Office of Diversion Control, the division that regulates and investigates the pharmaceutical industry. Now in a joint investigation by 60 Minutes and The Washington Post, Rannazzisi tells the inside story of how, he says, the opioid crisis was allowed to spread—aided by Congress, lobbyists, and a drug distribution industry that shipped, almost unchecked, hundreds of millions of pills to rogue pharmacies and pain clinics providing the rocket fuel for a crisis that, over the last two decades, has claimed 200,000 lives.”
HDA calls for communication
The Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA), which represents primary pharmaceutical distributors, issued the following statement from its President and CEO John M. Gray in response to the 60 Minutes/Washington Post coverage:
“Our industry recognizes the opioid epidemic as a national crisis—one that requires urgent action and solutions from across the healthcare system. While distributors do not manufacture, market, prescribe or dispense medicines—including opioids—we are supportive of initiatives by the government, public health organizations and our supply chain partners to reduce opioid prescribing, increase disposal of unused medicine, and improve patient, pharmacist and physician education.
“The most powerful and effective enforcement tool we can envision is the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the supply chain working together to combat the opioid epidemic. For the past decade, our industry has continuously sought opportunities to communicate and coordinate more effectively with DEA to better understand our reporting responsibilities under the Controlled Substances Act, and to work together to mitigate the opioid epidemic. Prior to 2016, these efforts were not reciprocated—as noted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a July 2015 report. The GAO recommended that the DEA ‘improve communication with and guidance for registrants’ in order to effectively address abuse, misuse, and diversion moving forward.
“This is why the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act (S. 483), which had broad, bipartisan support, was a meaningful common-sense solution to create a pathway for information exchange between the DEA and its registrants that did not previously exist. Yet, under the law today, the DEA remains fully empowered to take immediate action against a registrant if there is ‘a substantial likelihood of an immediate threat that death, serious bodily harm, or abuse of a controlled substance will occur in the absence of an immediate suspension of the registration.’
“Greater clarity, dialogue and collaboration between the DEA and its supply chain partners will strengthen our nation’s ability to precisely and effectively combat prescription drug abuse and diversion.”
Manufacturers to blame?
Nearly every company in the distribution chain, as well as physicians and patients, have been blamed for the opioid epidemic.
A June 2, 2017 article in The Atlantic asked, “Are Pharmaceutical Companies to Blame for the Opioid Epidemic?” The story named Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals [and subsidiary Cephalon] and Johnson & Johnson [and subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals] in an Ohio lawsuit that accused the companies “of spending millions on marketing campaigns that ‘trivialize the risks of opioids while overstating the benefits of using them for chronic pain.’” The lawsuit also named Endo Health Solutions and Allergan as manufacturers of opioids.
Purdue Pharma’s website offers specific details on the responsible use of opioids on its website, aimed at helping patients and healthcare providers, as well as curbing the diversion, misuse and abuse of opioid pain medicines.
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Lawyer who took on tobacco industry now turning to big drug manufacturers (VIDEO)
Oct 19, 2017 | CBS Evening News
By Mark Strassman
View clip here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lawyer-who-took-on-tobacco-industry-turns-to-big-drug-manufacturers-opioids/
Corresponding article/transcript:
The opioid epidemic is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year -- and one attorney is fighting it in court.
As black market poison, opioids have become an American cradle-to-grave scourge.
"There is an opioid-addicted baby being born in a hospital right now," said Mike Moore.
Moore calls himself a "country lawyer from Mississippi." Don't believe it. He's a 65-year-old David who has found his next Goliath: The big drug manufacturers.
Moore says the industry understated how addictive the painkillers could be.
"They said there was a study that showed that less than 1 percent of people taking opioids would get addicted if under a doctor's care. That turned out to be a big lie -- just wasn't true," Moore said. "They misled the American public. They misled the doctors in this country. Many of the doctors were duped. And frankly, I think they misled the FDA."
But one lawyer taking on a multi-billion dollar industry? It may sound like a mismatch. But don't believe that either.
"I do not believe nicotine or our product is addictive," said one tobacco executive to Congress.
"I believe nicotine is not addictive," said another.
In 1994, Moore filed the first civil lawsuit against the tobacco industry for misrepresenting the dangers of smoking. He was Mississippi's attorney general. Forty-six states eventually joined him. They won the largest class action settlement in history: $246 billion.
"My mama called me and told me it's time for me to come home," Moore said. "I mean everybody thought I'd gone absolutely nuts cause nobody frankly had ever beaten them at all. But we had a just cause."
Now Moore's pushing for a similar class-action suit against the pharmaceutical industry. He has convinced 11 states.
"It's a blunt instrument," Moore said. "It kinda hits people upside the head and gets their attention. Sometimes that works."
He admits that he "loves" being the David.
"These cases will get the truth out about this industry and maybe we'll never repeat this in history," Moore said. "Win or lose."
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Chicago Seeks Janssen Employees' Info In Opioid Suit
Oct 18, 2017 | Law360
By Emily Field
The city of Chicago on Tuesday told an Illinois federal judge that 10 Janssen employees likely have documents related to the city’s claims that the drug company and others misleadingly marketed opioids and the city should be allowed to seek those documents.
Chicago in a motion to compel said that Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. should include 10 employees responsible for its opioid marketing as custodians of electronically stored information that can be searched for the relevant documents. So far, Janssen has refused to add these employees, and the company’s reasons are baseless, the city said in the heavily redacted filing.
“Their claim that the custodians are ‘duplicative’ finds no support in Janssen’s own documents,” Chicago said. “Their conclusory claims that it would be burdensome to add these custodians lack any specifics, and therefore do not suffice.”
Chicago sued Janssen, Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd., Purdue Pharma LP and other drugmakers in 2014, saying they misled doctors and the public about the addictive nature of opioids and pushed prescriptions despite known dangers of addiction. As a result, the city claims that it paid for thousands of medically unnecessary prescriptions for city employees.
Janssen argues that including these employees would be “duplicative,” but it’s unlikely that employees working in the same area would carry out the same tasks in a way that would make their documents the same, the city said.
“Janssen further has complained of the unspecified ‘burden’ of searching the files of additional custodians,” the city said. “Janssen offers no specifics in support of this argument.”
The drugmaker hasn’t fixed a number to the additional data in the electronic files, nor has it shared with the city any additional cost for searching through more employees’ information, Chicago said.
“It merely argues that it has collected ‘nearly a terabyte’ of data from unspecified sources and therefore refuses to collect and search anymore,” the city said.
“The city has designated more than 125 custodians whose files it will search for responsive electronically stored information. Janssen has agreed to search only 17 custodians,” Chicago said. “In contrast, the Endo defendants have agreed to search 62 ESI custodians and the Actavis defendants have agreed to search 43 ESI custodians.”
The city’s suit is one of a number filed by municipalities over the ongoing opioid epidemic, in addition to one filed on behalf of a Cherokee tribe and at least one proposed class action in Arkansas.
More than 40 state attorneys general have also launched a joint investigation into at least half a dozen drugmakers and distributors.
The state AGs' probe initially focused on OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and has since widened to include other drugmakers and distributors such as Endo, Allergan, McKesson and Teva.
"We look forward to fully responding to this latest motion once we have the opportunity to review it with counsel," a Janssen spokesman told Law360 on Wednesday. "We recognize opioid abuse is a serious public health issue that must be addressed. At the same time, we firmly believe the allegations in these lawsuits are both legally and factually unfounded. Janssen has acted responsibly and in the best interests of patients and physicians with regard to these medicines, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about possible risks on every product label."
Representatives for the city didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
The city is represented by Edward Siskel, Thomas McNulty and Fiona Burke of the city of Chicago, Linda Singer, Elizabeth Smith, David I. Ackerman and Jeffrey Nelson of Motley Riceand Kenneth A. Wexler and Thomas A. Doyle of Wexler Wallace LLP.
Janssen and Johnson & Johnson are represented by Charles C. Lifland, Esteban Rodriguez, Dave Roberts and Seth Baglin of O’Melveny & Myers LLP, Carolyn J. Kubota of Covington & Burling LLP and Michael P. Doss and Scott D. Stein of Sidley Austin LLP.
Purdue Pharma LP is represented by R. Ryan Stoll, Gretchen M. Wolf, Lindsey Sieling, Michael S. Bailey and Patrick J. Fitzgerald of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, Robert S. Hoff of Wiggin & Dana LLP and Mark S. Cheffo, Sheila L. Birnbaum and Hayden A. Coleman of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP.
Teva and Cephalon are represented by J. Gordon Cooney Jr., Tinos Diamantatos, Jane Dudzinski, Megan Braden, Steven A. Reed and Jeremy Menkowitz of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.
Endo is represented by Jonathan L. Stern, Steven G. Reade, Joshua M. Davis, Joanna G. Persio and Sean O. Morris of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP.
Actavis is represented by Donna M. Welch, Martin L. Roth, Timothy W. Knapp, Jennifer G. Levy and Jason R. Parrish of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
The case is City of Chicago v. Purdue Pharma LP et al., case number 1:14-cv-04361, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. -
Hillsborough Commissioners consider suing big pharma
Oct 18, 2017 | News Channel 8 (FL)
By Meredyth Consullo
Hillsborough County may take the first step in a legal showdown against pharmaceutical companies. County commissioners may launch an investigation into the manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids, as well as, heroin and fentanyl.
At its regular meeting Wednesday, the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners will consider hiring legal council to possibly sue, manufacturers and distributors. Five legal teams are vying to represent the county in an investigation into the opioid epidemic.
Opioid overdoses in Hillsborough County began to spike in 2014, and in 2016 the majority of the county’s 197 fatal-drug overdoses involved opioids.
A lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies would, in part, help Hillsborough County recoup millions of dollars spent on first responders, law enforcement, the anti-overdose drug Narcan, and rehabilitation programs for addicts. The action would fall in line with a public health emergency declared by Gov. Rick Scott in May, in response to the state’s opioid crisis.
If the county votes to move forward, and hires legal council to investigate the opioid epidemic, there will not be any taxpayer money required, due to a contingency fee agreement that states the legal team will only be compensated if damages are recovered on behalf of the county.
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Wisconsin Counties Join Lawsuit Against Opioid Drug Manufacturers
Oct 18, 2017 | WPR (WI)
By Rich Kremer
A growing number of counties are joining a lawsuit against opioid drug manufacturers with the goal of recovering local costs of dealing with what's been called a prescription drug epidemic.
Eau Claire, Sauk and Marathon county boards voted Tuesday night to sign on to a potential lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies manufacturing opioid painkillers. The Wisconsin Counties Association is leading the effort and is hopeful that as many as 60 or 70 of the state's 72 counties will join the lawsuit.
The association has claimed drug makers engaged in fraud, misrepresentation and false advertisement while pushing their products. The Eau Claire County Board voted 24-1 to join the lawsuit. Board Chairman Gregg Moore said vast amounts of money have been spent on law enforcement, and health and human services combating opioid abuse.
"If we can recover some cost through this possible litigation to cover our out-of-pocket costs associated with the opioid epidemic, it would be good," Moore said. "It would be a good service for the public and it would be a very reasonable and appropriate step for us to take."
Moore said he doesn't have a total for how much Eau Claire County has spent fighting opioid addiction and related crimes but they're working to compile that data now. Once it's tabulated the figure will be sent to an attorney representing the Wisconsin Counties Association.
A number of states, including Wisconsin, have announced investigations of the opioid pharmaceutical industry and some have filed suits of their own. But Moore said the greatest costs are born by the local units of governments.
"It's our medical examiners, it's our health department, it's our human services department, it's our sheriff's department and so on that are dealing with this issue," said Moore. "So, it's our level of government that is very significantly impacted."
According to data from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, 1,031 residents died in 2016 from overdosing on opioids, up from 872 in 2015.
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Drug companies being blamed for Opioid epidemic
Oct 18, 2017 | WBRC (AL)
By Hannah Ward
The opioid epidemic continues to cripple counties across the country.
Now the blame is being shifted to the big drug companies.
Recently, Etowah County announced a lawsuit against three drug companies they say are fueling the epidemic. Some even go as far as calling it legal drug dealing.
"I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. The problem has gotten so out of control," Danny Molloy with the Addiction Coalition stated.
A recent investigation uncoverd several U.S. pharmacies in small areas are receiving very large numbers of opioid pills.
"The distributors that were involved with these shipments did seem to report these to the DEA or other authorities," Stefan Kertesz with UAB Medical school recalled.
And a law passed last year cripples the DEAs ability to do something about this.
"Essentially, their ability to say we are suspicious we don't want this medication to be shipped to this pharmacy that was weakened that has raised concern," Kertesz explained.
"It seems like the pharmacy companies runs this country. I mean it seems like they write our laws," Molloy stated.
With Alabama being one of the highest states for prescribed opioid pain medication, there are a lot of layers to this problem. Molloy said while we want one answer to this problem, one answer doesn't exist.
He believes there also needs to be more accountability laws.
"We have a PDMP which is a prescription drug monitoring program that it is not mandatory for doctors to check and see if a client or a patient has been doctor shopping which means he has been bouncing around to doctor to getting multiple prescriptions filled," he explained.
Doctors say that is not the end-all, be-all to fixing this issue.
"The thing is given the severity of the challenges we face there should be a way for legal authorities and health authorities to look at those situations to have that stuff hidden from view so that the authorities can look at it seems unfair and like it could put us at a risk," Kertesz explained.
There are some incidents where a doctor is require to check the PDMP but a lot of it depends on how much the doctor is prescribing.
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How OxyContin’s maker tried to influence Trump’s opioid commission
Oct 18, 2017 | Vice News
By Keegan Hamilton
A top executive at Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the painkiller OxyContin, met with a member of the commission created by President Donald Trump to advise his administration on the opioid epidemic, according to documents obtained by VICE News. During the June meeting, the executive offered suggestions on how to fix a crisis the drugmaker has been widely blamed for creating.
The previously unreported meeting and a letter sent from the company to the commission were disclosed in nearly 3,000 pages of public records obtained by VICE News under the Freedom of Information Act from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the White House organization that “provides administrative and financial support” for the opioid commission.
The five-page letter, sent June 29 and signed by J. David Haddox, Purdue’s vice president of health policy, lays out the company’s preferred “policy options” for addressing opioid addiction and overdoses. The letter, addressed to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the commission chairman, and others sent to the commission by drugmakers reveal how Purdue and a handful of other drug companies and distributors with significant financial stakes in the opioid commission’s findings have attempted to exert their influence.
“He handed me brochures on their outreach efforts. After the discussion, I thanked him for the information and moved on to the next person waiting to speak with me.”
Haddox begins by stating that he’d recently met with commission member Bertha Madras, an addiction researcher and professor of psychobiology at Harvard Medical School, to discuss the company’s suggestions. He also notes that the president could act on Purdue’s recommendations without approval from Congress.
“Purdue supports several public policies we believe will help reduce misuse, abuse, and diversion of, addiction to, and fatal overdose from opioid analgesics,” Haddox wrote. “To supplement our conversation, I offer these policy options from Purdue, along with ideas for implementing them through executive actions.”
The Connecticut-based drugmaker’s letter (viewable in full below) lists five proposals for responding to the opioid crisis: Limiting “the duration of the first opioid prescription” for people on Medicare, expanding state prescription-drug monitoring programs, requiring doctors who prescribe opioids to demonstrate “competence,” encouraging drug companies to create “abuse-deterrent” pills, and offering enhanced training for doctors to spot addicted drug users and refer them to treatment.
Similar suggestions were included in the opioid commission’s interim report, released July 31. The report called for Trump to mandate additional “education training in opioid prescribing” and to provide federal funding to enhance prescription drug monitoring programs. The recommendations, which addiction specialists and policy experts praised, also included calls for expanded access to medically-assisted treatment, greater enforcement of rules that require insurers to cover mental health care, and a number of other proposals not mentioned by Purdue.
The documents obtained by VICE News detail more than 8,000 public comments submitted to the opioid commission, mostly from average citizens who wrote to voice concerns or offer their own ideas for solving the opioid crisis. The majority of the letters are from individuals urging Christie to consider medical marijuana as a solution to the opioid epidemic, a suggestion the commission has so far ignored.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy declined to comment on Purdue’s letter and referred questions to Christie’s office. A spokesman for Christie said the governor “has not been discussing any of the details about [the] work and deliberations of the commission” and would not be available for comment until the commission’s final report is released on Nov. 1.
Purdue also declined to answer questions. “The letter speaks for itself,” a company spokesman wrote.
Madras, the commission member who met with the Purdue rep, said in an email that the encounter was brief and informal — she’d held “office hours” at a hotel and invited members of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence to stop by and offer their input on the commission. She wrote:
“A Purdue rep signed up to speak with me. He told me that they 1. currently had 2% of USA market share for opioids and 2. had developed educational programs and outreach for safe prescribing. He handed me brochures on their outreach efforts. After the discussion, I thanked him for the information and moved on to the next person waiting to speak with me.”
Madras added that there was “no pre-screening of people who signed up” to meet with her and said she “did not anticipate the appearance of the Purdue VP.” She wrote that she decided to speak with Haddox because she had not established restrictions ahead of time about who could attend her “office hours,” and because “as a scientist, I am forever interested in learning from, and assessing all viewpoints.”
“Industries that market and profit from addictive substances — tobacco, opioids, alcohol, marijuana — traditionally attempt to minimize risk of addiction and maximize benefits of their products,” Madras wrote. She concluded that she “did not learn anything of core relevance” from Haddox to shape her input to the commission.
Purdue’s meeting with Madras and its subsequent letter to Christie are just the latest revelations about the drug industry’s efforts to influence policymakers on opioid issues. A joint investigation by The Washington Post and “60 Minutes” published Sunday detailed how Trump’s nominee for “drug czar,” Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Tom Marino, sponsored legislation that favored the drug industry and hindered the DEA’s ability to halt large and suspicious orders for prescription painkillers. A day later, Trump announced via Twitter that Marino had withdrawn his name from consideration for the post.
Attorneys general from nearly a dozen states, including Louisiana and Washington on Oct. 2, as well as several cities and counties have sued Purdue and other painkiller manufacturers and distributors for allegedly engaging in practices that fueled the opioid epidemic. Purdue and three of its executives paid a $634.5 million fine after pleading guilty in 2007 to federal charges related to misbranding OxyContin. At the same time, campaign finance records show that Purdue, which generates about $3 billion in annual revenue, has spent more than $7.3 million lobbying federal lawmakers over the past decade, including $570,000 so far this year.
Purdue is by no means the only drug company that wrote to Christie’s commission. Others that submitted letters include the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, which represents over 100 companies that fill more than 3 billion prescriptions per year; the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, which represents wholesale drug distributors; and Walgreen’s, America’s second-largest pharmacy chain.
Another notable letter came from Adapt Pharma, the maker of Narcan, a naloxone nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses. The company called for Christie’s commission to recommend that Trump declare a national state of emergency in response to the opioid crisis, a move that would unlock federal funding to pay for expanded access to naloxone. (Trump said he’d make the emergency declaration more than two months ago, but he has yet to follow through. He said Monday that the formal declaration would be made “next week.”)
“We suggest that the opioid commission act to protect law enforcement officers — including the DEA — by equipping them with naloxone as a protective measure against accidental overdose in the course of their duties,” Adapt Pharma wrote in its letter to Christie’s commission.
Soon after, the commission used similar language in its interim report, writing to Trump, “We urge you to mandate, with federal assistance, that naloxone be in the hands of every law enforcement officer in the United States.” The commission called for the Department of Health and Human Services to “negotiate reduced pricing” with naloxone retailers.
A carton with two doses of Narcan typically sells for $125, but police and other first responders qualify for a 40 percent discount. So if each of the nearly 1.1 million law enforcement officers in the U.S. were equipped with just one $75 carton of Narcan, Adapt would stand to gross more than $82 million.
The cost of Narcan wasn’t mentioned in Adapt’s letter, but the company noted that its reps would be “happy to meet with any members of the commission who would like more information.”
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Ohio Gubernatorial candidate proposing surcharge on opioids
Oct 19, 2017 | Associated Press
A Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio says she would force drug manufacturers to pay a nickel-per-dose surcharge on prescription opioids sold in the state in an effort to help solve the opioid problem.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley is seeking her party’s nomination for the 2018 gubernatorial race. She says her proposal on prescription opioids announced Wednesday seeks to “clean up the mess” of the opioid crisis.
Whaley says the plan would raise more than $30 million a year for local emergency responders, substance abuse centers and psychiatric hospitals.
Whaley has previously said that taking on drug companies for their role in the opioid crisis would be her highest priority as governor.
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