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Is One $6-Billion Payout Enough Punishment for the Family That Brought Us the Opioid Crisis?
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the complex bankruptcy case of Purdue Pharma, whose owners, the Sackler family, have become synonymous with the carnage wreaked on American families by the profligate and dishonest marketing and distribution of OxyContin and other opioids.
In exchange for giving up ownership of Purdue and paying up to $6 billion over the next 18 years that would be used to address the crisis they helped cause, the Sacklers, understandably but shamelessly, want to be shielded against any other civil lawsuits from victims who are not parties to the current litigation. Most of the victims who are part of the settlement — state governments, Native American tribes and individuals — agreed to the terms.
But should it be legal to grant the Sacklers protection from future lawsuits? The U.S. Trustee Program, an arm of the Justice Department that oversees the administration of bankruptcy cases, argues that it is not.
Why should the Sacklers, who personally have not declared bankruptcy, be entitled to the protections that bankruptcy offers? And why should potential victims who are not part of the mega-settlement be prohibited from filing lawsuits in the future?
Whatever the court decides, this case should bury once and for all the lie that drug misuse and addiction stem only from bad personal choices. The American people were victimized by a family of heedless billionaires who lied and cheated to get their product, up to twice as powerful as morphine, into our bloodstreams for profit.
Bayer Ordered to Pay $3.5 Million in Latest Roundup Weedkiller Trial
Bayer (BAYGn.DE) was ordered on Tuesday to pay nearly $3.5 million by a Philadelphia jury that found the company’s Roundup weedkiller caused a woman’s cancer, the company said, the latest in a string of trial losses for the company as it tries to fend off thousands of similar lawsuits.
The verdict in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas marks the fifth consecutive loss for Bayer, but it is much smaller than recent verdicts against the company that total more than $2 billion. The German conglomerate has faced pressure from some investors to reach a speedy settlement of the litigation in order to avoid further hefty trial verdicts.
The verdict, which came after a three-week trial and two days of jury deliberations, includes $462,500 in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages. The jury was split 10-2.
Bayer has been hit with much larger verdicts in similar cases in recent months, including a $1.56 billion award in November for three plaintiffs. Around 165,000 claims have been made against the company for personal injuries allegedly caused by Roundup, which Bayer acquired as part of its $63 billion purchase of U.S. agrochemical company Monsanto in 2018.
Most People in ‘America’s Heartland’ Will Forgo Updated COVID Vaccines: Survey
Nearly 60% of Americans living in the Midwest and surrounding states say they will not get the new COVID-19 vaccine this year, according to a survey from Emerson College Polling.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an updated new COVID-19 booster in September, targeting currently circulating variants of the disease.
But more than three years since the onset of the pandemic, fewer Americans are opting to get booster shots. Only 16% of U.S. adults have gotten the newest vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The Emerson College survey found Americans overall are split down the middle on whether to get the updated vaccine — with 51% nationally choosing not to. In the survey, 57% of respondents in the Midwest and surrounding states said they would not get the booster.
COVID Vaccine Death Data Leak Sparks Arrest: It ‘Blew My Mind’
A New Zealand man was recently arrested after allegedly illegally accessing COVID-19 vaccine data from the country’s health agency. Barry Young, 56, a former IT employee at Te Whatu Ora, the country’s health agency, was arrested and accused of illegally obtaining COVID-19 vaccine data and sharing it on the internet, the New Zealand Herald reported this week.
“I just looked at the data and what I was seeing, since the rollout, it just blew my mind. I was just seeing more and more people dying who shouldn’t have been dying. It was just obvious.”
Following the leak, Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa issued a statement saying: “From what we have established to date, the individual downloaded a large amount of vaccine-related information. We are still working to confirm the full extent of this activity. The data, as published on an overseas site, appears to have been anonymized. Analysis of the released data is ongoing but work so far has not found any National Health Index Numbers or personally identifiable information.
“I want people to analyze this, I want people to look at it … we need to open it up and the government needs to have an inquiry about it. Just bring it to the public’s attention,” Young said.nYoung added that he noticed some “really big red flags,” in the data he accessed. He said he was accessing the data and noticing more deaths caused by the COVID-19 vaccine in New Zealand compared to the numbers released by the health agency.
Pfizer, After Delay, Completes Enrollment in Lyme Vaccine Trial
Pfizer and Valneva’s vaccine has the chance to become the first marketed, preventive shot for the disease in more than 20 years. The shot, known as VLA15, is the only one currently in clinical development and is designed to provide protection against six strains of Lyme disease.
Yet the path to approval has been difficult. The companies first began their Phase 3 trial, dubbed Valor, in August 2022, aiming to build upon promising findings observed in earlier testing in adults and children. Then, in a surprise announcement in February, they disclosed that they were removing half of the study’s participants because of concerns about possible study violations by a key trial site operator.
That contract research company, Care Access, disagreed with the decision and shared information with the Food and Drug Administration as well as an independent review board. Though the FDA eventually cleared Care Access of wrongdoing in October, the company still had to cut about half of its staff during the review. The development of Pfizer and Valneva’s shot was delayed as well, even as the study continued at other trial sites.
On Monday, that delay came to an end, as the partners revealed that they’ve enrolled 9,437 study volunteers at sites in the U.S., Europe and Canada. A second study in children, designed to provide more details on the shot’s safety, has also been fully recruited, the companies said.
As Ozempic Cases Mount, Consumer Lawyers Push to Consolidate Lawsuits
Attorneys representing people who say they weren’t properly warned about harsh side effects associated with blockbuster weight loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy are pushing to centralize the lawsuits in a Louisiana federal court, filings show. About 20 lawsuits have been filed over the drugs, known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, since August against pharmaceutical companies Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, court records show.
Attorneys from Morgan & Morgan, which has brought nine of the lawsuits, filed a motion on Friday asking the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to consolidate the litigation over the drugs in the Western District of Louisiana.
Consolidating the cases would streamline the discovery process and would prevent judges from issuing conflicting rulings. But critics of MDLs, often defendant companies, say the process can make it too easy for plaintiffs’ lawyers to file lawsuits without having support for their claims.
The lawsuits, which are filed on behalf of people who were prescribed the drugs to treat their diabetes or to help with weight loss, claim the companies downplayed or failed to warn consumers about the risk of side effects like stomach paralysis and intestinal paralysis or obstruction.
The lawsuits name Novo’s drugs Ozempic, Saxenda, Rybelsus and Wegovy and Eli Lilly drugs Mounjaro and Trulicity.
Health Canada Approves Updated Novavax Vaccine to Protect Against COVID
Health Canada has authorized an adapted vaccine from Novavax to prevent COVID-19 in people age 12 and older.
Novavax’s product — Nuvaxovid XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant COVID-19 vaccine — uses a more traditional approach to defend the body against severe infection, hospitalization and death.
It is also authorized as a booster for those 18 and older, according to Health Canada’s webpage.
Novavax’s first vaccine to protect against COVID-19, known as Nuvaxovid, was authorized for use in Canadians 18 and over by Health Canada in February 2022.
As Stelara Cliff Looms, J&J Expects 25 Blockbuster Drugs to Drive Future Sales Growth
As Johnson & Johnson places a magnifying glass on its pharmaceutical business, the focus for the remainder of the decade rests on the shoulders of some 25 new and upcoming drugs.
Together, those meds will help the company deliver pharmaceutical sales growth of 5% to 7% between 2025 and 2030, the company said Tuesday.
That phalanx of novel products will be essential as J&J’s longstanding psoriasis star, Stelara, nears its tumble over the patent cliff. Last year, the drug generated $9.7 billion and was J&J’s top product by sales.
During an enterprise business review on Tuesday, J&J will lay out its expectations across the 2025 to 2030 timeframe. Chief among those, J&J says it will boast more than 10 drugs with peak sales potential of at least $5 billion, including cancer launches Talvey and Tecvayli, plus another 15-plus products with sales potential of at least $1 billion. The latter group of therapeutics includes treatments such as the depression nasal spray Spravato.
Is the Flu Shot Market a Slam Dunk for mRNA Vaccines? Experts Aren’t so Sure
The world needs more effective flu vaccines. And pharmaceutical companies that learned of the vaccine-making power of the messenger RNA platform during the COVID-19 pandemic need new markets for their technology.
With the heydays of COVID vaccine sales in the rearview mirror, the flu vaccine market, with its antiquated production process that mainly relies on growing viruses in hen’s eggs, seems an obvious candidate for a shake-up.
The manufacturers have noticed, with Pfizer, Moderna, GSK, and Sanofi Pasteur all working on mRNA flu shots. GSK and Sanofi are already major producers of flu vaccines and may be looking to solidify their positions; Pfizer and Moderna are new to flu, but further along in the mRNA work.
Given the widespread acceptance that the current flu vaccines could use improvement, are mRNA shots the answer? As the scientific world waits for published data on which to formulate conclusions, STAT spoke to influenza and vaccine experts who see some significant benefits of applying mRNA technology to the production of flu vaccine — but also some serious challenges mRNA manufacturers will face breaking into this already crowded market.
