Newsletter RSS

Mealey's Drugs & Devices

  • July 01, 2025

    Zimmer, Biomet Answer Complaint Alleging Hip Implant Injuries

    CHICAGO — Zimmer US Inc. and Biomet Orthopedics LLC answered a complaint filed in an Illinois federal court by a man alleging injuries caused by a metal-on-metal hip implant, denying the allegations and asserting 43 affirmative defenses.

  • June 30, 2025

    Judge Trims Claims Against Manufacturer In Defective Defibrillator Lead Case

    NEWARK, N.J. — A federal judge in New Jersey partially granted a motion to dismiss certain claims leveled against a defibrillator lead manufacturer, finding that some claims are preempted by federal law or are subsumed by the New Jersey Products Liability Act.

  • June 27, 2025

    Parties Dismiss 1 Insurer In N.C. Coverage Suit Arising From Opioid Epidemic

    WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Insureds and one insurer filed a joint stipulation asking a North Carolina court to dismiss the claims and counterclaims between them in a coverage dispute arising from the opioid epidemic.

  • June 27, 2025

    Split U.S. High Court: Universal Injunctions ‘Likely Exceed’ Courts’ Authority

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nationwide or universal injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts,” a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 27, partially staying nationwide injunctions issued in three cases challenging President Donald J. Trump’s Jan. 20 birthright citizenship executive order (EO),

  • June 26, 2025

    Shareholder Sues Hims After Partnership That Allowed Compounded Semaglutide Ends

    SAN FRANCISCO — Hims & Hers Health Inc., a telehealth company that touted a collaboration with Novo Nordisk Inc. that would allow it to sell compounded semaglutide products, was hit with a securities fraud class action on June 25 by a shareholder who alleges that the stock value plummeted when Novo Nordisk ended the partnership.

  • June 26, 2025

    Compounding Pharmacy Says Summary Judgment Award In Semaglutide Spat Should Stand

    TAMPA, Fla. — Novo Nordisk Inc. fails to “meet a high bar to alter or amend a judgment” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) for a Florida federal court to amend its order granting summary judgment in favor of a pharmaceutical company accused of selling unapproved compounded drugs containing semaglutide, the company says in an opposition brief.

  • June 24, 2025

    Woman Seeks Certification For Defective Potassium Pill Economic Loss Class Action

    NEWARK, N.J. — An Alabama woman on June 23 sued Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a New Jersey federal court, seeking to represent a class of consumers from Alabama who purchased allegedly defective potassium chloride pills.

  • June 24, 2025

    Arkansas Moves To Consolidate Cases Over Law Banning PBMs From Owning Pharmacies

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas moved to consolidate four cases that challenge the constitutionality of a recently signed law that bans pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) from owning a pharmacy business in the state, contending that the cases share common questions of law and name the same defendants.

  • June 23, 2025

    Amicus Briefs Urge Court To Grant Petition Over Whether Stem Cells Are Drugs

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “attempts to own people’s biological cells, akin to their own skin or hair, by unjustifiably classifying them as drugs under the FDA’s regulatory scheme” is an issue of national importance, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) argues in a June 20 amicus curie brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the court to grant a petition filed by a stem cell clinic and its owners that contends that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred in finding that a stem cell mixture used by clinics is a drug under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA).

  • June 23, 2025

    Company Says Petition To Enter Judgment Strays Outside Of Arbitral Award

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Swiss pharmaceutical company on June 20 filed a brief in District of Columbia federal court arguing that a California company’s petition for entry of judgment confirming an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) tribunal’s award against the Swiss company worth more than $17.8 million asks the court to improperly enter judgment on the petitioner’s “interpretation” of merits findings made by the tribunal.

  • June 19, 2025

    Judge Clarifies Schedule In Petition To Enforce $17.8M Arbitral Award

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge in a June 18 docket entry explained that the court will treat a California pharmaceutical company’s petition to enforce an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) tribunal’s award in its favor worth more than $17.8 million as a motion to enforce under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and directed a Swiss company to respond by the end of the month.

  • June 19, 2025

    Mass Tort Cases For Drugs, Medical Devices

    New developments in the following mass tort drug and device cases are marked in boldface type.

  • June 18, 2025

    CVS Asks Court To Halt Law Barring PBMs From Operating Pharmacies In Arkansas

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — CVS Pharmacy Inc. and its subsidiaries urged an Arkansas federal court to put on hold an Arkansas law that “adopts an unprecedented prohibition on pharmacies that are affiliated with pharmacy benefit managers (commonly referred to as PBMs) continuing to operate in the State” while the companies challenge the law’s constitutionality.

  • June 18, 2025

    9th Circuit Affirms RICO TPP Class Certification For Actos Cancer Risk

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a district court did not err in certifying a national third-party payer (TPP) class of entities that paid for the diabetes drug Actos, agreeing with the lower court that the predominance requirement for certification was satisfied.

  • June 17, 2025

    New York Federal Judge Won’t Vacate Medical Device Suit Rulings On Recusal Grounds

    NEW YORK — A woman who sued medical device manufacturers in 2018 for injuries stemming from a hip replacement surgery did not convince a New York federal judge that alleged financial conflicts warranted vacatur of orders from a magistrate judge, the trial judge or one of the appellate judges who affirmed the manufacturers’ summary judgment award or that the court should hold an evidentiary hearing.

  • June 17, 2025

    50 States, Territories Sign Off On $7.4B Settlement With Purdue Pharma, Sacklers

    NEW YORK — Purdue Pharma LP updated its 13th amended Chapter 11 reorganization plan in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on June 17, a day after all 50 states and the District of Columbia and U.S. territories agreed to a $7.4 billion agreement in principle with Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family that was first announced in January, to settle claims that they contributed to creating the opioid crisis.

  • June 16, 2025

    U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Review Fosamax MDL Ruling On Preemption

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 16 denied a drug manufacturer’s petition for certiorari in the long-running Fosamax femur fracture multidistrict litigation, letting stand a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that found that state law claims are not preempted and reversed a decision that awarded the drug manufacturer summary judgment in 1,046 cases.

  • June 16, 2025

    PBMs Ask 9th Circuit To Rehear Case That Remanded California’s Opioid Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — A recent Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski did not extend to an automatic stay in the federal officer removal context warrants rehearing because it creates a split in the federal courts of appeals, a group of pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) facing allegation of contributing to the public nuisance of the opioid epidemic in California argues in a June 13 petition.

  • June 16, 2025

    Judge Denies Device Makers’ Motion To Dismiss, Orders Amended Complaint

    NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge ordered a man who alleges that an allegedly defective medical device that was implanted to control pain caused injuries to amend his complaint to clarify when his claims under the Louisiana Products Liability Act (LPLA) arose.

  • June 13, 2025

    Wash. Federal Judge Dismisses Complaint Alleging Injuries From Birth Control Device

    SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge on June 12 dismissed with prejudice a complaint filed by a couple who alleges that a Mirena intrauterine contraceptive device (IUD) was defective and migrated from a woman’s uterus, agreeing with the manufacturer that the claims are preempted by federal and state law.

  • June 13, 2025

    Theranos’ Holmes Asks For Sentence Reduction, Citing New Guidelines

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Elizabeth A. Holmes, the founder and former CEO of defunct biotechnology startup Theranos Inc. who is currently serving her 11-year sentence for investor fraud in a minimum-security federal prison camp, asked a California federal court to reduce her sentence pursuant to an amendment to sentencing guidelines.

  • June 13, 2025

    GSK, 2 Sets Of Plaintiffs Agree To End Zantac Cases In Connecticut State Court

    WATERBURY, Conn. — GlaxoSmithKline LLC and GlaxoSmithKline Holding and two groups who allege injuries from ingestion of generic ranitidine products have agreed to settle claims, according to a notice of settlement filed in a Connecticut state court.

  • June 13, 2025

    Distributor Of Authorized Generic Drugs Dismissed From Depo-Provera MDL

    PENSACOLA, Fla. — The Florida federal judge overseeing the Depo-Provera multidistrict litigation, a group of cases alleging that a long-lasting injectable contraceptive caused women to develop intracranial meningiomas, a type of brain tumor, on June 12 signed a stipulated order dismissing a generic drug distributor from all cases.

  • June 12, 2025

    Judge Refuses Remand Of California Suit Over Insulin Pricing

    CAMDEN, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge overseeing multidistrict litigation over the pricing of insulin denied the state of California’s renewed motion to remand its claims against pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by unfairly setting insulin prices, finding that removal to federal court was proper despite the state’s disclaimers releasing any interest in recovery under federal law.

  • June 10, 2025

    Novo Nordisk Says Summary Judgment Award In Semaglutide Spat Needs Amending

    TAMPA, Fla. — Novo Nordisk Inc. on June 9 urged a Florida federal court to amend its order granting summary judgment in favor of a pharmaceutical company accused of selling unapproved compounded drugs containing semaglutide, arguing that because the court held that the drug manufacturer’s claims were moot, the court erred in analyzing the merits of the case and should amend the judgment to dismiss the case without prejudice.