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Mealey's Drugs & Devices

  • March 31, 2026

    Judge Allows UCL, False Advertising Case Against Telehealth Company To Proceed

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal judge agreed to trim a lawsuit filed by Eli Lilly and Co. against a telehealth company that it alleges violated California’s unfair competition and false advertising laws by selling “knockoff compounded tirzepatide drugs” for diabetes and weight loss.

  • March 30, 2026

    High Court Rejects Petition To Review Whether Gardasil Claims Were Untimely

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court will let stand a decision by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the addition of the Gardasil vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table was constitutional and that women must first file claims in the Vaccine Act compensation program before suing in a district court, according to a March 30 docket entry.

  • March 30, 2026

    Federal Judge Says Guidelines Warrant 1-Year Reduction To Sentence For Holmes

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge found that Elizabeth A. Holmes, the founder and former CEO of defunct biotechnology startup Theranos Inc., is eligible for a sentence reduction pursuant to amended sentencing guidelines and reduced her prison term by one year.

  • March 30, 2026

    Judge Agrees To Dismiss Suit Claiming FDA-Approved Trifecta Heart Valve Failed

    LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge agreed that a man’s claims that an implantable medical device for the heart failed and required surgical removal and replacement are preempted by federal law and granted a motion to dismiss filed by the device manufacturer.

  • March 30, 2026

    9th Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment Award To Spinal Cord Stimulator Device Maker

    SEATTLE — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found no error in a decision by a Washington federal judge who granted a motion for summary judgment filed by a medical device maker after ruling that a man failed to satisfy the “public impact” element of his claim under Washington’s Consumer Protection Act (CPA).

  • March 30, 2026

    Would-Be Intervenors In Challenge To CDC Vaccine Changes File Notice Of Appeal

    BOSTON — A children’s advocacy group known for questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccinations and others who claim that their interests are not properly protected by the parties in a challenge to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s changes to vaccine recommendations and makeup of a vaccine advisory panel filed a notice of appeal to the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals seeking review of a Massachusetts federal court’s rulings denying their motion to intervene and granting a preliminary injunction.

  • March 27, 2026

    Plaintiffs: Arguments Against Spinal Cord Device Case Centralization Not Persuasive

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The manufacturers of spinal cord stimulators that plaintiffs in pending cases allege were defective and caused injuries are attempting “to muddy the waters” by pointing out “very minute differences in the factual allegations of the plaintiffs, while completely ignoring the substantial similarities between both the factual and legal allegations leveled against them,” according to a reply brief filed by a group of plaintiffs seeking to centralize the cases in a multidistrict litigation.

  • March 27, 2026

    Women Allege They Were Misled About Genetic Testing In Putative Class Suit

    NEWARK, N.J. — Three women who allege that they and women like them each spent thousands of dollars on preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) sued the manufacturers of a testing product, alleging that they misrepresented the effectiveness of the testing.

  • March 27, 2026

    Judge Finds Novo Nordisk Lacks Standing In Suit Against Telehealth Company

    YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — The manufacturer of Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus failed to plausibly allege an injury in fact in its complaint against a telehealth company that sells compounded drugs purportedly containing semaglutide, an Ohio federal judge ruled in dismissing the complaint.

  • March 26, 2026

    Florida Federal Judge Enters Judgment For Filshie Clip Makers In Case Alleging Defect

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Florida federal judge entered judgment in favor of the manufacturer, distributor and parent company of a birth control device on March 25 after the woman who brought claims “conceded that there are no meaningful distinctions between this case” and others that were dismissed on preemption grounds.

  • March 26, 2026

    Insurer Owes No D&O Coverage For Antitrust Suit Against Pharmaceutical Company

    GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland granted a directors and officers liability insurer’s motion to dismiss a pharmaceutical company insured’s breach of contract and bad faith lawsuit seeking a declaration as to coverage for an underlying antitrust action arising from the insured’s acquisition of the rights to distribute a prescription medication used to treat mobility issues in people with advanced Parkinson's disease, holding that the insured has failed to plead that the underlying allegations are "Securities Claims" within the meaning of the D&O insurance policy.

  • March 25, 2026

    Maryland Supreme Court Holds Opioid Claims Do Not Constitute Public Nuisance

    ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The Maryland Supreme Court, in answering a certified question from a district court, held “that the licensed dispensing of, or administration of benefit plans for, a controlled substance does not constitute an actionable public nuisance.”

  • March 24, 2026

    Judge Rules Case Against Cialis Maker Properly Dismissed On Causation Grounds

    SEATTLE — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a summary judgment award for the manufacturer of Cialis after affirming that a man did not establish proximate cause in his claim that the drug caused him to suffer a stroke.

  • March 23, 2026

    Taxotere Eye Injury MDL Judge Grants Generic Drug Makers Summary Judgment

    NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge granted an unopposed motion for summary judgment filed by generic manufacturers of a chemotherapy drug that allegedly caused eye injuries after agreeing that a previous ruling granting summary judgment to other generic manufacturers applied “with equal force to them” and that they could not unilaterally change their labels because they lacked any “newly acquired information” about the danger of the drugs, making claims against them preempted by federal law.

  • March 23, 2026

    U.S. Supreme Court Declines To Review Order That Certified National TPP Class

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court announced on March 23 that it will not consider a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by two drug companies that argued the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred in certifying a national third-party payer (TPP) class of entities that paid for the diabetes drug Actos.

  • March 19, 2026

    Mass Tort Cases For Drugs, Medical Devices

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

  • March 18, 2026

    Judge Finds Federal Law Preempts Claim That Skin Cream Caused Blindness

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge dismissed a pro se plaintiff’s complaint against a group of pharmaceutical companies after finding that her claim that a generic skin cream caused blindness is preempted by federal law.

  • March 18, 2026

    Magistrate: Amended Complaint Against Device Maker Still Fails To State A Claim

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal magistrate judge in California on March 17 recommended that a motion to dismiss filed by a diabetes monitor manufacturer be granted without leave to amend for failure to state a claim after finding that a pro se plaintiff did not adequately fix deficits in his second amended complaint.

  • March 18, 2026

    9th Circuit Reverses Dismissal Of Health System FCA Suit Against Drug Makers

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 17 reversed and remanded a lower court’s dismissal of a health system’s qui tam suit asserting violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) and related state laws by drug manufacturers participating in the Public Health Service Act’s Section 340B Drug Pricing Program, finding that because the health system brought an action pursuant to the FCA, the lack of a private right of action under Section 340B was not material and therefore the health system’s claims were not barred by Section 340B.

  • March 17, 2026

    Depo-Provera MDL Judge Updates Parties On Rapid Increase Of Cases Filed

    PENSACOLA, Fla. — In cases filed in a multidistrict litigation centralized in a Florida federal court, as well as cases that remain in various state courts, more than 3,700 plaintiffs allege that Depo-Provera, a long-lasting injectable contraceptive, caused women to develop intracranial meningiomas, a type of brain tumor, according to a recent case management order filed in the MDL.

  • March 17, 2026

    Suboxone Makers Say Hundreds Of Plaintiffs Have Failed To Comply With Court Orders

    CLEVELAND — The makers of suboxone film, a prescription drug used to treat opioid use disorder, which are named as defendants in a multidistrict litigation pending in an Ohio federal court, told the court that hundreds of plaintiffs have failed to comply with a case management order (CMO) and asked the court to order those plaintiffs to show cause or face dismissal; the defendants filed a separate motion for an order to show cause for health care providers who have not complied with a court order.

  • March 17, 2026

    Parties In Missouri Mifepristone Dispute Ask For Extension To Respond To Motions

    ST. LOUIS — States challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used to induce early termination of pregnancy, should have extra time to respond to a motion to stay filed by the federal government and motions to dismiss filed by drug manufacturers that were allowed to intervene in the case, the parties say in a joint motion filed in a Missouri federal court on March 16.

  • March 17, 2026

    Insured Seeks To Dismiss 3 More Insurers From Opioid Epidemic Coverage Suit

    SPARTANBURG, S.C. — An insured filed a stipulation in a South Carolina federal court seeking to dismiss three more insurers from a coverage dispute arising from governmental entities’ underlying lawsuits alleging that it caused or contributed to the opioid crisis by improperly marketing, distributing and selling opioid medications, leaving its excess insurers’ intervenor complaint to proceed.

  • March 17, 2026

    Federal Judge Stays CDC’s Changes To Recommended Vaccine Schedule, Advisory Panel

    BOSTON — Finding that physicians’ professional groups and others are likely to prevail in their challenge to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) changes to vaccine recommendations and the reconstitution of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) as violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a Massachusetts federal judge on March 16 stayed both a January U.S. Department of Health and Human Services memorandum announcing the reduction of the recommended childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11 and the appointment of 13 new ACIP members.

  • March 16, 2026

    Spinal Cord Device Manufacturers Oppose MDL, Say Centralization Unnecessary

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The manufacturers of spinal cord stimulators that plaintiffs in pending cases allege were defective and caused injuries reject calls to centralize the cases in a multidistrict litigation and tell the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) in separate briefs to deny a motion to transfer.