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New
York's Attorney General and Nassau and Suffolk Counties are
seeking to hold the two companies responsible for the cost of
dealing with opioid addiction. The companies have said they
complied with federal regulations and that changing standards of
care were behind surging opioid prescriptions.
The case is one of more than 3,300 filed by state, local and
tribal governments across the country accusing drugmakers of
minimizing opioid drugs' addictiveness and distributors and
pharmacies of ignoring red flags that they were being diverted
into illegal channels.
On Tuesday, jurors saw the last evidence in the case, including
two parody videos made in 2006 for a sales meeting at Cephalon
Inc, later bought by Teva.
One video showed the character Dr. Evil from the film "Austin
Powers" as a Cephalon employee complaining about child-resistant
packaging on the company's opioid drug Fentora. The other
spoofed a courtroom scene in "A Few Good Men" and featured a
Cephalon employee telling a lawyer that he "can't handle the
truth" about how sales representatives meet quotas.
More than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses during the
12-month period ending April 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention said in a report in November, a record
driven largely by opioids.
The three largest U.S. drug distributors and Johnson & Johnson
in July agreed to pay up to $26 billion to resolve the lawsuits
against them.
A bankruptcy judge in September approved a settlement by
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, including about $4.5 billion
from its wealthy Sackler family owners.
(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Alexia
Garamfalvi and Aurora Ellis)
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