Mealey's Drugs & Devices : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Drugs & Devices

July 21, 2025
8 Opioid Manufacturers Agree To $720 Million Nationwide Settlement

Eight drug manufacturers have reached a nationwide settlement agreement, pledging to pay $720 million to fund drug prevention and treatment services throughout the country to end legal claims stemming from their roles in the U.S. opioid epidemic.
July 18, 2025
Hims Shareholder Files Derivative Complaint Over Compounded Semaglutide

SAN FRANCISCO — A shareholder of Hims & Hers Health Inc. on July 17 filed a stockholder derivative action in a California federal court on behalf of the company, accusing the company’s board of directors and executives of misleading the shareholders about a collaboration with Novo Nordisk Inc. that would allow Hims to sell compounded semaglutide products.
July 18, 2025
6th Circuit Affirms Hip Implant Device Manufacturer’s Summary Judgment Award

CINCINNATI — A lower court properly granted a manufacturer of a hip implant device summary judgment after finding that a man’s expert witnesses to support his claim that the device was defective were properly excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held.
July 17, 2025
Mass Tort Cases For Drugs, Medical Devices

New developments in the following mass tort drug and device cases are marked in boldface type.
July 16, 2025
Judge Dismisses Defective Medical Device Case After Man Doesn’t Amend Complaint

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge cited a man’s “admission on the record that his claims are preempted as currently pled and his failure to otherwise amend his petition” and dismissed with prejudice his complaint that an allegedly defective medical device that was implanted to control pain caused injuries.
July 16, 2025
Magistrate Judge: Off-Label Promotion Use Of Drug Case Belongs In Federal Court

WILMINGTON, Del. — A federal magistrate judge in Delaware recommended that the court deny a motion to remand a case filed by mothers who allege that a pharmaceutical manufacturer wrongfully promoted the off-label use of an asthma drug to treat preterm labor in pregnant women.
July 16, 2025
4th Circuit Says W.Va.’s Law Banning Abortion Is Not Preempted By Federal Law

RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a split decision on July 15 rejected claims by the manufacturer of mifepristone that the West Virginia Unborn Child Protection Act (UCPA), which bans abortion in almost all cases, is preempted under federal law.
July 15, 2025
Delaware Supreme Court Says Expert Testimony Improperly Admitted In Zantac Case

WILMINGTON, Del. — A lower court “erred in adopting a standard that favored or presumed the admissibility of expert testimony,” the Delaware Supreme Court ruled in an interlocutory appeal, finding that the trial court was wrong to deny a series of motions to exclude testimony from experts who opined that Zantac containing ranitidine can cause 10 types of cancer.
July 14, 2025
First Bellwether Trial In Valsartan MDL To Start In September

CAMDEN, N.J. — A federal judge presiding over the valsartan/losartan/irbesartan hypertension drugs multidistrict litigation in a New Jersey federal court signed off on an amended case management schedule, setting the stage for the first bellwether trial to begin in September.
July 14, 2025
Case Disputing Attorney Fees In Benicar MDL Sent Back To New Jersey District Court

PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 11 sent a dispute over the amount of attorney fees awarded to a law firm for its work in the Benicar multidistrict litigation back to a New Jersey federal court, finding that the lower court erred in denying a motion to remand.
July 11, 2025
Cook County, Ill., Jury Returns Defense Verdict In Zantac Injury Case

CHICAGO — An Illinois jury returned a verdict for Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., rejecting arguments from a man who alleged that his prostate cancer was caused by ingesting over-the-counter Zantac.
July 11, 2025
Judge Finds Securities Claims Against Medical Technology Company Lack Scienter

TRENTON, N.J. — A federal judge in New Jersey dismissed a putative securities class action brought by pension funds against a medical device and technology company for alleged misstatements regarding efforts to address deficient manufacturing conditions at the company’s Boston facility, finding the pension funds did not plead “a strong inference of scienter.”
July 11, 2025
Depo-Provera MDL Judge: Disclose All Third-Party Litigation Funding Deals

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, ordered all plaintiffs and their counsel to disclose any third-party litigation funding agreements.
July 10, 2025
Ky. Federal Judge Denies Series Of Motions To Exclude Experts In Pelvic Mesh Case

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky federal judge presiding over a long-running case against a pelvic mesh manufacturer denied three separate motions to exclude experts filed by the manufacturer and a woman who says she was injured by the mesh.
July 10, 2025
Norfolk, Va., Says PBMs, Manufacturers Worked Together To Raise Insulin Prices

NEWARK, N.J. — The manufacturers of nearly all insulins and other diabetes medications available in the United States worked in concert with pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) to drive up the price of insulin and related medications, Norfolk, Va., alleges in a complaint filed July 9 in a New Jersey district court.
July 09, 2025
Magistrate Judge Recommends Dismissal Of Case Alleging Weight Loss Drug Injuries

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — While recognizing that woman’s “pro se status affords her with some measure of leniency from the Court,” a Tennessee federal magistrate judge on July 8 recommended that a motion for summary judgment filed by employees of a compounding pharmacy be granted and that a complaint alleging injuries from medication taken for weight loss be dismissed.
July 09, 2025
Washington Federal Judge Rules That FDA’s Restrictions On Mifepristone Can Stand

YAKIMA, Wash. — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision to add Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) restrictions on mifepristone, one of the two drugs prescribed for medication abortions, was not arbitrary or capricious, a Washington federal judge found on July 8, rejecting a request by a coalition of states to grant summary judgment and remand the matter to the FDA for further consideration.
July 08, 2025
Illinois Appeals Court Affirms Dismissal Of Non-Brand Defendants In Zantac Case

CHICAGO — Claims against non-brand defendants in a woman’s case alleging that the heartburn drug Zantac and its generic equivalent, ranitidine, caused her to develop colon cancer were properly dismissed, an Illinois appeals court affirmed.
July 08, 2025
Prenatal Tests Maker To Settle Class Action Claims Of False Positives For $8.25M

OAKLAND, Calif. — The manufacturer of noninvasive prenatal tests will pay up to $8.25 million in a class action settlement to resolve claims that its tests returned false positive test results for some rare genetic conditions despite advertising its products as reliable and accurate, according to a motion for preliminary approval of class action settlement filed in a California federal court.
July 07, 2025
Applying Recent High Court Decision, Judge Grants Limited TRO For Iowa PBM Law

DES MOINES, Iowa — Noting “the Supreme Court’s recent narrowing of district courts’ ability to impose injunctive relief beyond that which is necessary to afford relief to named parties,” an Iowa federal judge imposed an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO) barring enforcement of a new Iowa pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) law as to the plaintiffs and the members of one of those plaintiffs; the judge concluded that the plaintiffs sufficiently showed that the provisions “are unenforceable as preempted by [the Employee Retirement Income Security Act] and violative of the First Amendment.”
July 07, 2025
N.C. Appeals Court Affirms Summary Judgment, Says Decedent’s Acts Led To Death

RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina trial court did not err in granting summary judgment to the manufacturer of an over-the-counter bronchodilator, a state appeals court said, finding that the contributory negligence of a woman who died after using the product barred her claims.
July 07, 2025
Faulty Bone Cement Failed, Woman Alleges In Complaint Filed In N.C. Federal Court

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — A defective bone cement used during a 2018 surgery failed to bond a woman’s knee prothesis to her bone, forcing her to undergo a third revision surgery to fix it, a woman alleges in a complaint filed in a North Carolina federal court.
July 07, 2025
Government Says Theranos’ Holmes Is Not Eligible For Sentence Reduction

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Elizabeth A. Holmes, the founder and former CEO of defunct biotechnology startup Theranos Inc., “is ineligible for a sentence reduction because she personally orchestrated a fraud scheme that caused dozens of investors to invest over $800 million in the company she founded . . . based on false misrepresentations,” the government said in opposition to her motion asking a California federal court to reduce her sentence pursuant to an amendment to sentencing guidelines.
July 03, 2025
Woman Alleges Sister’s Death Was Caused By Use Of Depo-Provera; Suit To Join MDL

PENSACOLA, Fla. — The sister of a woman who died from a hemorrhage caused by an intracranial meningioma filed a wrongful death suit in Florida federal court against the manufacturer of Depo-Provera, a long-lasting injectable contraceptive that she alleges caused the death.
July 03, 2025
Judge Says Ethicon’s Expert Can Testify On Conditions Of Pelvic Mesh Devices

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky federal judge presiding over a long-running case against a pelvic mesh manufacturer denied a woman’s motion to exclude a female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery expert from testifying for Ethicon Inc., finding that the doctor’s testimony is reliable.