Category: Productliability

Katherine Hobson
Also: what the FDA should do about Avandia; Merck wins a Vioxx suit; hospital pricing confusion.
Read more this great post here

Sarah Rubenstein
Associated Press
A day after the Supreme Court ruled that patients can sue drug makers in state courts, Congressional Democrats proposed making it easier to sue medical-device makers.
Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate submitted legislation that would allow product liability suits in state courts by patients who say they were harmed by […]

JGrimes
Right up front, Bill Gates says that his first annual letter about his foundation was suggested by his pal and philanthropic partner Warren Buffett. But Gates adds right away that he won’t try to match the legendary wit of Buffett’s folksy letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.
“I won’t be quoting Mae West or trying […]

JGrimes
(Photo: Mary Altaffer/AP)
With all the problems Pfizer has with R&D, politicians carping about prices and a rising sea of generics, we almost forgot about the mountain of litigation looming over the company from the sale of painkillers Bextra and Celebrex.
But this morning the drugmaker said it has reached agreements in principle that would […]

JGrimes
In a first, the current and former editors of the New England Journal of Medicine have banded together and plunged into an escalating legal battle over how much FDA’s approval of drugs should shield their makers from liability claims under state laws.
The influential doctors take the side of plaintiffs, arguing that lawsuits are […]

JGrimes
Diana Levine leans on her baby grand piano with her real arm while resting her prosthesis on her lap. (AP Photo/Times Argus, Stefan Hard)
What’s shaping up as one of the most important Supreme Court cases for corporations, consumers and the tort bar this fall has taken a tortured path to highest court in […]

JGrimes
Propose an accounting rule that has to do with litigation costs, and you’re sure to get drug companies’ attention. Six major drugmakers protested a Financial Accounting Standards Board proposal to require companies to estimate their exposure to potential losses from ongoing litigation.
Among other things, the proposal says that when a complaint doesn’t seek […]

JGrimes
The makers of the multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri were dealt a legal setback Tuesday when a federal judge rejected their efforts to move a lawsuit over a patient’s death from state court in Biogen Idec’s Boston backyard to federal court in Iowa.
The decision also is a blow, though perhaps only a fleeting one, […]

JGrimes
Fortunes in Big Pharma sometimes turn on a dime.
Last year, Merck was the darling of the industry, as sales of some new products grew at a healthy clip and the company turned the corner in litigation over Vioxx. Shareholders rewarded Merck handsomely, driving its share price up 33% in 2007, making it the […]

JGrimes
Speaking of lawsuits against drug makers, there’s also news today of one against Allergan over Botox.
A handful of Botox users and their relatives are claiming that Allergan failed to warn them of the drug’s dangers, according to the Los Angeles Times. The suit links Botox to three deaths, all among patients who used […]