- In welcome reversal of Obama-era ban, FDA will once more permit direct-to-consumer genetic testing [Meghana Keshavan/STAT News, FDA press release]
- Will California law hold a pharmaceutical maker liable — in perpetuity — for a drug that it did not make and did not sell? [Steven Boranian/Drug & Device Law, PLF on T.H. v. Novartis]
- Litigation funding group chases clients in hip replacement litigation [PR Newswire]
- ACA penalizes hospitals for high Medicare readmission rates, but new study links that policy to higher mortality for heart failure patients [Arnold Kling, Ankur Gupta et al., JAMA Cardiology, Cristina Boccuti and Giselle Casillas, Kaiser Family Foundation]
- Litigation tourism model that has done well for plaintiff’s bar now circling drain after Supreme Court’s Bauman, Bristol-Myers Squibb decisions [Jim Beck, Drug & Device Law, more, yet more; related on West Virginia, and from Michelle Yeary on choice of law and forum non conveniens]
- “FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb Goes to Bat For Evidence-Based Opioid Policies” [Mike Riggs, Reason] “Abuse-Deterrent Opioids Cross an Ethical Line” [Jeffrey Singer, Orange County Register]
Filed under: California, chasing clients, FDA, forum shopping, hospitals, litigation finance, ObamaCare, opioids, pharmaceuticals, West Virginia
6 Comments
“for a drug that it did not make and did not sell?”
But if I understand it correctly, they DID sell the rights to sell the drug, and (allegedly) knew of the problem before they sold the rights, but didn’t adjust the label before the sale. And although an off-label use was involved, the company allegedly encouraged this off-label use at one point. Assuming that’s true (as the court must at this stage) I don’t find it ridiculous that they’d be liable. There might be factual arguments, but those are for a jury.
“But if I understand it correctly, they DID sell the rights to sell the drug”
You don’t understand correctly. They did not sell anything to the company that manufactured the specific doses in question in this case.
Generic drugs are generally not the result of the original developer selling the rights, but rather that the original developer’s exclusive rights resulting from a patent expiring.
Patents are only last for 20 years.
From Jeffrey Singer’s Cato reprint of his Orange County Register article:
Harm reduction is anathema for the drug prohibitionists who control government policy. They are driven by what Mencken called “mortal fear that somewhere, sometime, someone is enjoying himself.” Prohibitionists consider death by overdose or preventable disease to be justifiable punishment for offending their delicate moral sensibilities.
Prohibitionists can always be found for any activity in which someone else finds pleasure, whether it’s sex, drugs or rock ‘n roll. Unfortunately, for more than a century prohibitionists have had sufficient political power to make drug use far more dangerous than drugs alone could ever bring about.
En Passant, aptly named. You seem to have an unprecedented insight into the minds and hearts of those you disagree with. Please eschew diatribe or take your opinions where people like to fight. We strive for informed and reasoned points of view here.
Statements from those opposed to harm reduction approaches are easy to find.
From former US “Drug Czar” John P. Walters, July 21st, 2014 on the subject “Bad Science: The Marijuana Experiment Has Failed”:
Was it entirely coincidence that Toyota Motors of North America started moving their headquarters from California to Texas in 2014, after they had been ripped off for $1.2 billion in a sudden-acceleration feeding frenzy?