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Mealey's Drugs & Devices

  • December 08, 2025

    Judge: Second Amended Complaint Cures Deficiencies Found In Previous Complaint

    LOS ANGELES — A second amended complaint filed by a woman who alleges that a defective medical device failed during surgery “added allegations to sufficiently rectify” deficiencies identified by a California federal judge in his previous ruling dismissing the complaint, he said in denying manufacturers’ motion to dismiss.

  • December 08, 2025

    Federal Magistrate Judge Recommends Final Judgment For Lilly In Trademark Dispute

    TAMPA, Fla. — A federal magistrate judge recommended that a Florida federal court grant Eli Lilly & Co.’s motion for a default final judgment after finding that a cosmetic weight loss center likely infringed on trademarks held by the company while selling a compounded version of tirzepatide.

  • December 04, 2025

    7th Circuit Won’t Stay Mandate In Medicare Drug Rebate False Claims Case

    CHICAGO — Arguments from Eli Lilly & Co. that the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to decide whether the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred in affirming a final judgment of $193 million for reporting falsely deflated drug prices to the government were unpersuasive, the Seventh Circuit said in denying Lilly’s motion to stay the court’s mandate.

  • December 04, 2025

    Depo-Provera MDL Judge Orders Causation Experts Disclosed By Jan. 1

    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, amended the discovery and briefing order for the five pilot cases, ordering the plaintiffs to disclose their general causation experts by Jan. 1.

  • December 04, 2025

    Texas Sues Over Plavix Marketing; Companies Say Suit Is ‘Stale And Opportunistic’

    Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) and Sanofi-Aventis US LLC responded to a complaint filed by Texas alleging that the pharmaceutical companies violated state law by falsely marketing the antiplatelet drug Plavix as effective without disclosing a genetic contraindication by petitioning another state court for declaratory and injunctive relief.

  • December 04, 2025

    Claims Against CooperSurgical Trimmed In Bellwether Paragard IUD Cases

    ATLANTA — The Georgia federal judge overseeing the Paragard intrauterine device (IUD) multidistrict litigation partially granted CooperSurgical Inc.’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the company had no control over the design of the IUD during the time period that the three bellwether plaintiffs allege that they underwent a procedure to implant the device, but the judge deferred ruling on the failure-to-warn claims until after supplemental briefing on causation is submitted.

  • December 04, 2025

    Federal Judge Finds Pharmacy Not Fraudulently Joined, Remands 2 Risperdal Cases

    SAN FRANCISCO — A group of drugmakers failed to show that two women who allege that prescription medications caused them to develop breast cancer could not possibly recover damages against a California company, a California federal judge held, granting the women’s motions to remand.

  • December 04, 2025

    Mass Tort Cases For Drugs, Medical Devices

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

  • December 03, 2025

    Sanofi Loses Bid To End Taxotere Eye Injury MDL Claims On Preemption Grounds

    NEW ORLEANS — The manufacturer of a chemotherapy drug that allegedly caused eye injuries had “newly acquired information” about the risk and could have changed its label under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s changes-being-effected (CBE) regulation, the Louisiana federal judge overseeing multidistrict litigation ruled, denying a motion by the drugmaker for summary judgment on preemption grounds.

  • December 03, 2025

    Drugmakers Urge High Court Review Of Class Certification Case, Cite Circuit Split

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A decision by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that found no error in the certification of a national third-party payer (TPP) class of entities that paid for the diabetes drug Actos, despite the court recognizing that there is no way to calculate the number of class members that were not harmed, should be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve a circuit split on when a court may certify the class action pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), two drug companies argue in a petition for a writ of certiorari.

  • December 03, 2025

    Third-Party Defendants Dismissed From Alleged Toxic Embryo Solution Case

    CINCINNATI — An Ohio federal judge granted motions to dismiss two companies named in a third-party complaint filed by the manufacturer of a solution used during fertility-related treatments that couples claim was toxic and destroyed their developing embryos after he found that the court lacks personal jurisdiction.

  • December 02, 2025

    Parties Debate Whether And Where To Centralize Faulty Toe Joint Implant Cases

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Four additional people who allege that a synthetic cartilage implant device used to treat arthritis in a toe joint was defective joined other plaintiffs in urging the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) to centralize all cases, arguing that the appropriate setting is in Illinois, while the device manufacturer tells the JPMDL that centralization is unnecessary.

  • December 02, 2025

    Magellan CEO, Executives Sentenced In Malfunctioning Blood Lead Test Kits Case

    BOSTON — A Massachusetts federal judge has sentenced the former chief executive officer of Massachusetts medical device company Magellan Diagnostics Inc. and two of its executives after they each entered guilty pleas in connection with charges that the company concealed that blood lead testing devices malfunctioned and produced inaccurately low lead levels.

  • December 01, 2025

    Federal Magistrate Recommends Partial Dismissal In Defective Cochlear Implant Case

    NEW YORK — A New York magistrate judge recommended that a court partially grant a motion to dismiss filed by a cochlear implant manufacturer after finding that many claims are preempted by federal law.

  • November 26, 2025

    Wash. Federal Judge Rejects Affirmative Defenses Raised By PBMs In Opioid Case

    SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge agreed to strike a series of affirmative defenses raised by two pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) that a county in the state allegedly helped create and perpetuate the opioid epidemic.

  • November 24, 2025

    7th Circuit Rejects Calls To Rehear Medicare Drug Rebate False Claims Case

    CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 21 denied petitions for rehearing filed by both parties in a False Claims Act case in which the Seventh Circuit affirmed a final judgment of $193 million for reporting falsely deflated drug prices to the government.

  • November 21, 2025

    Texas Supreme Court Won’t Reconsider Review Denial In Counties’ Opioid Suit

    AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Supreme Court on Nov. 21 denied a motion for rehearing filed by a group of pharmacies, letting stand its decision to refuse to review a lower court’s ruling that allowed a case filed against them by Texas counties for their role in the opioid epidemic to proceed, rejecting arguments by the pharmacies that the case will leave those counties “emboldened to find another set of businesses to target” and “could cause serious harm to people across this State.”

  • November 20, 2025

    Judge OKs Purdue Pharma’s $7.4 Billion Settlement In Opioid Bankruptcy Case

    NEW YORK — The judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York overseeing the Purdue Pharma LP case has signed off on a $7.4 billion agreement to settle claims that the company and its owners, the Sackler family, contributed to creating the opioid crisis.

  • November 20, 2025

    Mass Tort Cases For Drugs, Medical Devices

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

  • November 19, 2025

    Widow: Contaminated Saline Solution That Was Recalled Led To Infection, Death

    BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Health care providers unknowingly used a contaminated saline solution to flush a man’s catheter following surgery, causing the man to develop sepsis and die, his widow alleges in a complaint filed in an Alabama federal court against the manufacturer and distributors of the solution.

  • November 19, 2025

    Abbott Moves To Dismiss Suit Alleging FDA-Approved Trifecta Heart Valve Failed

    LEXINGTON, Ky. — A man’s claims that an implantable medical device for the heart failed and required surgical removal and replacement “face an insurmountable threshold problem: federal preemption,” the device manufacturer argues in a motion to dismiss.

  • November 19, 2025

    Federal Circuit: Jury Should Have Found Eyelash Med Patent Claim Invalid

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said on Nov. 18 that a generic drug maker “has overcome the doubly high burden of persuading us to overturn a jury verdict of no invalidity” in a dispute over a patent relating to a medication for eyelash growth, reversing a Colorado federal jury’s infringement finding and $39 million in damages.

  • November 19, 2025

    Generic Mifepristone Maker Voluntarily Dismisses Complaint Against FDA, DOJ

    GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland has closed a case filed by the generic manufacturer of mifepristone, one of two drugs used to induce early termination of pregnancy, against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Justice to enjoin the agency from making any changes to the approval of the drug after the manufacturer filed a notice of dismissal.

  • November 19, 2025

    Judge Dismisses Third-Party Defendants From Alleged Toxic Embryo Solution Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — The manufacturer of a solution used during fertility-related treatments that couples claim was toxic and destroyed their developing embryos has not shown the “more” that is required to exercise personal jurisdiction over third-party defendants, a California federal judge held in granting two motions to dismiss.

  • November 19, 2025

    CVS, Woman Agree To Settle Misleading ‘Non-Drowsy’ Medicine Label Case

    ST. LOUIS — A settlement has been reached between CVS Pharmacy Inc. and a woman who claims that she was misled into purchasing over-the-counter CVS-branded medicines that were labeled “non-drowsy” when in fact they cause drowsiness, according to a federal judge in Missouri.