West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey on May 25 announced to the Kanawha Circuit Court the state had reached a tentative $161.5 million settlement with opioid suppliers Teva Pharmaceuticals and Allergan, accused of causing an epidemic.
CHARLESTON – An attorney for the state of West Virginia attempted to pin down an expert defense witness, accusing him of being a pro-opioid-industry hireling and also less than honest on his resume in a trial accusing drug makers of causing an epidemic.
CHARLESTON – State attorneys attempted to discredit a defense expert witness as unreliable during May 18 testimony in the Mass Litigation Panel opioid trial.
CHARLESTON – A sales rep manager who worked for defendant Cephalon testified that opioid drugs Actiq and Fentora were not viable sellers in the state during the 2005-07 time period.
CHARLESTON — Sales reps for opioid suppliers accused of causing an epidemic in West Virginia say they sold drugs only in the confines of what Food & Drug Administration labeling would allow, and did not attempt to expand a market but to simply “maintain it.”
CHARLESTON — An expert witness called by defense attorneys in a trial to decide if opioid drug suppliers caused an epidemic in West Virginia said two products Kadian and Norco made by a defendant Allergan did not increase overall drug prescribing in the state.
CHARLESTON -- A circuit judge asked attorneys to take a temporary break to reconsider their arguments in the state trial for drug companies accused of irresponsibly flooding West Virginia with pain pills and causing an epidemic.
CHARLESTON – Attorneys defending opioid drug companies accused of causing an epidemic in West Virginia brought in a pain specialist doctor to refute the testimony of witnesses for the state who claimed doctors had become reckless in over-prescribing pain pills.
CHARLESTON – Defense attorneys in the West Virginia opioid trial sought to portray the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency as providing no guidance on how drug-producing companies could comply with regulations.
CHARLESTON — A former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officer testified that the defendant opioid suppliers took lightly their responsibility to prevent drug diversion.
CHARLESTON — An official of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration told attorneys defending suppliers of opioid drugs that the companies were supposed to protect against suspicious drug orders without specific guidance from the DEA.
During a trial in West Virginia accusing opioid drug suppliers of causing an epidemic, a former employee of Teva, one of the defendants and the largest generic manufacture of opioids in the country, admitted the company could be held responsible.
CHARLESTON – Attorneys defending drug suppliers accused of creating an opioid epidemic in West Virginia sought to poke holes in the earlier testimony of an analyst called as an expert witness by the state whose numbers showed a dramatic increase in opioid prescriptions from the years 2007 to 2017.
CHARLESTON – A security manager for an opioid drug company testified that officers of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration turned “aggressive” in the 2011 time period and began to “beat up” drug suppliers and manufacturers.
CHARLESTON – An analytics analyst in a trial accusing suppliers of causing an opioid epidemic said the amount of prescriptions for pills in West Virginia increased dramatically between 1997 and 2017, with 2011 being the peak year.
An opioid researcher told a West Virginia court on Thursday manufacturers and distributors of dangerously powerful drugs such as OxyContin, were promoted by the companies in what amounted to a step-by-step distortion campaign undertaken for profits----resulting in an epidemic.
CHARLESTON – A director of the Food & Drug Administration says physicians in the 1990s lost their fear of prescribing opioids, leading to higher rates of addiction.
A professor of pharmacy marketing told a West Virginia courtroom that the selling of opioid drugs by sales reps was designed to expand market share of the drugs and result in profits - a central argument state attorneys intend to show as the causation of an epidemic.
