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Author: Brendan Pierson
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE 🙂 Ltd has boosted opioid addiction in New York State, a jury found on Thursday, a setback for the company, which still faces thousands of other opioid lawsuits in the United States.
In a nearly six-month trial by the state and its two counties in a New York state court, the verdict does not include compensation, which will be determined later.
The trial judge is still examining Teva’s request for a failed trial, after the state’s attorney cited incorrect statistics on opioid prescriptions in his closing argument. If the verdict is upheld, it could put pressure on Teva to reach a national agreement with other state and local governments over opioid claims.
New York and Nassau and Suffolk counties have accused the Israeli drug manufacturer of engaging in deceptive marketing practices that fueled opioid addiction, including promoting off-label drugs.
Actiq and Fentora, which Teva bought in 2011 with anti-cancer drugs from Cephalon Inc., focused on generic opioids sold by Teva.
Evidence at trial was a parody video made in 2006 for a Cephalon sales meeting, where the villain, Dr. Evil “Austin Powers” talked about promoting non-cancer pain medications, and another video, based on one. A court scene from “A Few Good Men” where a Cephalon employee tells a lawyer starring Tom Cruis that he “can’t handle the truth” about what sales representatives need to do to meet quotas.
Teva argued at trial that he complied with federal and state regulations and denied engaging in misleading marketing. He blamed the rise in opioid prescriptions that began in the 1990s on changes in medical care standards.
U.S. officials say the 2019 health crisis has resulted in nearly 500,000 opioid overdose deaths in two decades. More than 100,000 people were killed in drug overdoses within 12 months of ending 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a November report that the record was largely driven by deaths from opioids such as fentanyl.
The New York lawsuit is one of more than 3,300 lawsuits filed by state, local, and Native American tribal governments across the country, accusing drug producers of reducing their dependence on opioid pain medications, and ignoring red flags that distributors and pharmacies were channeling to illegal channels. .
Other defendants in the case settled before or during the trial – the main pharmacies, McKesson Corp (NYSE 🙂 distributors, AmerisourceBergen (NYSE 🙂 Corp and Cardinal health Inc. (NYSE :), and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE :), Endo International (NASDAQ 🙂 and drug dealers AbbVie Inc. (NYSE :). AbbVie’s $ 200 million settlement came at the end of the trial, the day of the final arguments.
The deal with J&J and distributors was part of a $ 26 billion national deal. Teva did not take part in the deal.
Teva had previously ruled in a similar case when a California judge ruled on November 2 that he and other drug producers were not responsible in a lawsuit filed by several counties in the state.
Purdue Pharma of OxyContin filed for bankruptcy in 2019 and hoped to resolve many of the painful lawsuits that the former owner of the company, the Sackler family, would pay $ 4.5 billion from future lawsuits in exchange for immunity. However, on Dec. 17, a federal judge overturned the agreement, a decision the company hoped would appeal.
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