Life SciencesRSS

  • August 20, 2007

    Bayoil Execs Plead Guilty In Oil-For-Food Scandal

    Two executives at Bayoil Inc. have pled guilty to participating in the United Nations' alleged oil-for-food kickback scheme, only days before the founder of the Texas refinery is due to stand trial on similar charges related to the Iraqi government scandal.

  • August 20, 2007

    Walgreens Must Pay Millions Over Prescription Error

    In a blow to Walgreens Co., a Florida jury has ordered the pharmaceutical giant to shell out $25.8 million to the family of a deceased cancer patient who suffered a devastating stroke after one of the company's pharmacy technicians made a key prescription mistake.

  • August 17, 2007

    PTO Won't Let Lipitor Patent Last Past 2010

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office dealt Pfizer Inc. another blow Thursday in the company's ongoing fight to hang onto its patents to the world's best-selling drug, cholesterol treatment Lipitor, when it rejected the drugmaker's bid to extend one of the patents.

  • August 17, 2007

    Medical Equipment Maker Wins One, Loses One

    There was good and bad news for health care giant Ventana Medical Systems Inc. this week, as the company announced it had resolved a long-running patent dispute, but lost another.

  • August 17, 2007

    Backdating Probes Into CVS Caremark Dropped

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a U.S. Attorney's office have dropped stock options backdating investigations into CVS Caremark Corp., the company revealed Friday.

  • August 17, 2007

    Drug Wholesale Price Plaintiffs Eye Later Judgment

    In the wake of a June ruling that AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Schering-Plough Corp. inflated average wholesale prices of drugs, plaintiffs have asked the court to decide whether to grant treble damages and attorneys' fees before entering a final judgment.

  • August 22, 2007

    Suits Multiply Over C.B. Fleet's Laxative

    C.B. Fleet Co. Inc.’s over-the-counter laxative used to prepare patients for colonoscopy procedures has been hit with a wave of lawsuits in at least 20 states for allegedly causing severe kidney complications and death.

  • August 17, 2007

    Guidant Fights Plaintiff's Bid To Lift Stay

    Guidant Corp. has lashed out at a bid by a plaintiff who sued the medical device maker over its allegedly faulty implantable heart defibrillators to lift a stay in his case, arguing that the move would only frustrate the ongoing settlement process in the multidistrict litigation.

  • August 17, 2007

    Biotech Co. Wants Class Action Tried On Home Turf

    Biotechnology company Threshold Pharmaceuticals made a bid on Thursday to get a proposed securities class action filed against the company last month transferred to the Northern District of California.

  • August 16, 2007

    Heart Drug Linked To Pacemaker Need In Women

    Women who take the heart medication amiodarone to treat a type of abnormal heart rhythm may have a greater chance of needing a pacemaker later in life, a new study indicates.

  • August 16, 2007

    Biomet Takes Surgical Screws Suit To Supreme Court

    A subsidiary of medical device maker Biomet has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a long-running patent infringement suit against Medtronic Sofamor Danek Inc., after losing a high-stakes appeal earlier this year

  • August 16, 2007

    Court Upholds Ex-Impath President's Conviction

    An appellate court has upheld the conviction of the former president of Impath Inc., who federal prosecutors are still hoping to jail for life on alleged securities fraud charges that led to the cancer company's bankruptcy and liquidation.

  • August 16, 2007

    Human Tissue Lawsuits Flood MDL Case

    Two additional cases have been transferred to the Human Tissue multidistrict litigation this week, joining almost 200 suits that allege patients became vulnerable to HIV and other infectious diseases after having the blood tissue of cadavers inserted during medical procedures.

  • August 15, 2007

    Merck Told To Fork Over Disputed Documents

    In a move that could have far-reaching implications for attorney-client privilege in the digital age, the federal district judge overseeing the Vioxx multidistrict litigation has ordered Merck & Co. to begin handing over documents, taking a hard line on the nature of privileged documents in electronic discovery.

  • August 15, 2007

    Diabetes Drugs To Feature Black Box Warning

    Just days after deciding not to pull GlaxoSmithKline PLC's Avandia Type 2 diabetes drug from the shelves, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has instead gotten the company and other manufacturers of antidiabetic medications to update their labels to reflect the risks of heart failure.

  • August 15, 2007

    Plaintiffs Seek Certification In Pfizer Class Action

    The plaintiffs in a suit against Pfizer Inc. have sought class action certification from a federal judge in Manhattan, marking the latest development in a series of legal battles between pharmaceutical companies and workers who claim the companies improperly classified them as exempt from overtime pay.

  • August 16, 2007

    Latham & Watkins LLP

    Latham & Watkins LLP's product liability team is unfazed by unwieldy, complex tort cases. The reasons, its practice heads say: an adaptable attorney roster with a glut of scientific and regulatory expertise.

  • August 17, 2007

    Morrison Foerster

    Knowing the law isn't enough for a successful product liability practice. For Morrison & Foerster, knowing products is an important competitive advantage, says Donald G. Rushing, the practice's co-chair.

  • August 15, 2007

    Teva Appeals Plavix Ruling To Federal Circuit

    Teva Pharamaceuticals USA Inc. has challenged a judge's decision blocking the generic drug maker from horning in on the market for the blockbuster blood-thinning drug Plavix, in a case in which Teva agreed to be bound by the same judge's ruling on a challenge to Sanofi's Plavix patent by Apotex in a separate case.

  • August 15, 2007

    Judge Bars Causality Assessments In Accutane MDL

    The judge in the consolidated Accutane product liability action dealt a major blow to the plaintiffs Wednesday when he blocked their move to hear experts' assessments of whether use of the acne drug caused suicide.