Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse
Pharmaceutical companies will have to reveal in detail the payments they make to patient-advocacy groups and professional medical societies in Ontario as part of the province’s efforts to pull back the curtain on money in medicine.
The lack of transparency has meant that health charities and non-profits have had no mandatory obligation to reveal which companies are funding them and in what amounts.
Read more at The Globe and Mail
Some of the pharmaceutical companies selling prescription opioids that have caused thousands of deaths are looking to profit from the antidote for overdoses, according to a VICE News analysis of drug approval records from Health Canada.
One emergency room doctor in Toronto who regularly reverses opioid overdoses with naloxone said the revelations show “companies [are] cynically profiting from both ends of the crisis” that claimed an estimated 4,000 lives in Canada last year.
Read more at Vice News
The pharmaceutical giant that misled physicians and patients about the addictive properties of its top-selling drug OxyContin, fuelling an overdose crisis that has devastated communities across North America, will stop marketing opioids to U.S. physicians.
However, the new policy does not extend into Canada.
Purdue Pharma L.P. announced the change in a statement issued on the weekend.
Read more at The Globe and Mail
AstraZeneca Plc is in talks to settle a Texas lawsuit claiming that the company fleeced the state’s Medicaid program by fraudulently marketing one of its top drugs, according to court filings.
Texas sued the drugmaker in 2013, saying AstraZeneca had targeted the state’s Medicaid program by urging doctors to prescribe the powerful antipsychotic Seroquel for unauthorized treatments — particularly for children — over six years.
Read more at Bloomberg
Canada’s brand-name pharmaceutical companies are pushing back against a plan to overhaul Canada’s drug-pricing regulator, saying they are keen to forge a compromise that would reduce prices, but not to a degree that could be “crippling” for the industry.
The president of Innovative Medicines Canada (IMC), which represents more than 45 companies, is planning to warn in a speech on Tuesday that her industry could struggle to invest in high-risk innovation, hire top talent and run local clinical trials if companies are forced to slash their prices too deeply, too quickly.
Read more at The Globe and Mail
New Jersey filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the company that manufactures OxyContin, claiming a “direct link” between the state’s opioid crisis and the firm’s deceptive marketing practices.
State Attorney General Christopher Porrino says the five-count lawsuit against Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma and two of its entities seeks undisclosed monetary damages for fraud and false claims.
Read more at CBC News
CENTRAL TEXAS — McLennan County announced Tuesday it had filed a lawsuit against two dozen of the country’s largest opioid manufacturers and distributors, including Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson.
In the federal complaint obtained by Channel 6, McLennan County Commissioners allege the opioid industry used a marketing scheme to deceive doctors and used front groups to promote opioids as a means of treating chronic pain, while downplaying the risks.
Read more at 13 News Now
Few things are more infuriating to consumers than the constant, surging increases in drug prices. Americans under 65 are projected to pay an additional 11.6% this year, while seniors are expected to see increases of 9.9%. These increases follow similar ones in recent years.
Price hikes like these, which run well above inflation and wage growth year after year, are a keen indication of how the drug industry lacks market fundamentals. Or, as President Trump put it Monday, prescription drug prices “are out of control” and the big pharmaceutical companies “are getting away with murder.”
Read more at USA Today
The same lawyer that took on big tobacco and landed the largest corporate settlement in the history of the U.S. is gearing up for his next victim: the opioid industry.
Mike Moore, the former attorney general of Mississippi, began asking states last summer to sue pharmaceutical companies for what he argued was a calculated misrepresentation of the benefits and addictions risks of using opioids. Moore wants to get roughly 25 states behind his cause, and build such a strong case against the pharmaceutical industry that it is forced to cower to the states’ demands.
Read more at The Daily Caller
Officials in Tennessee are coming after drug makers, specifically Purdue Pharma, alleging dishonest marketing of their medications hooked the region on opioids.
The district attorneys general for five judicial districts in the eastern portion of the state filed the lawsuit Sept. 29, which focuses on Purdue Pharma, the manufacturers of OxyContin. Jared Effler, district attorney general for Tennessee’s Eighth Judicial District, is spearheading the legal effort for the region, which he says is “one of the hardest-hit areas in the opioid epidemic that is plaguing the nation,” reports Bristol Herald Courier.
Read more at The Daily Caller