Publication Source Archive: Law360

During the trial, the state and the Long Island counties argued that Teva’s downplaying of the risks of opioids led to communities being flooded with prescriptions, while Anda failed to flag suspicious orders. For its part, Teva argued that the state was to blame for not stopping doctors who made irresponsible opioid prescriptions. “We are…Read the article

Nassau County lawyer Hunter Shkolnik spent roughly two hours in closing arguments Monday morning, saying the remaining drugmaker defendants, all affiliated with Teva, made sales without any way to do it right. “Actavis Watson, Teva, Cephalon, no systems whatever,” he said. “They made the market, they sold the opioids, but had no system to comply…Read the article

Scorched by cover-up claims in nationwide opioid litigation, Endo Pharmaceuticals is hoping for heroics from a Skadden squad that is belatedly revealing vast volumes of drug marketing records, a strategy that could simultaneously snuff out some discovery deficiencies and fuel new doubts about the drugmaker’s initial transparency. “Where the discovery is in the infancy, there’s…Read the article

Teva Pharmaceuticals is scrambling to stop jurors in a New York opioid trial from viewing internal videos that transformed famous film scenes into parodies of narcotic painkiller marketing, warning that the clips are so provocative they could single-handedly destroy the drugmaker’s defense. Although the precise content of the clips remains unclear, Napoli Shkolnik PLLC partner…Read the article

Thursday’s testimony came from Angela Feniger, Par’s former DEA compliance director, who is now an associate director of technical writing and quality assurance at the drugmaker. In 2010, she testified that Par hired outside consultants to conduct an internal audit of the company’s compliance with the agency processes. “And the point of the audit was…Read the article

Napoli Shkolnik PLLC partner Matthew Lavin, who represents patients who have been denied insurance coverage for mental health treatment, said the feedback he’s gotten from “hundreds of clients” is that UBH still isn’t fully covering substance abuse treatment. Under UBH’s current guidelines, developed by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, it should cover multiple types…Read the article

The New York judge overseeing the state’s trial over the opioid crisis on Monday ordered Endo Pharmaceuticals and its firm Arnold & Porter to explain discovery violations and why Endo shouldn’t be hit with a default judgment for its liability for the epidemic, following accusations of discovery cover-up in separate cases. “The depth of the deceit…Read the article

The New York attorney general and six other state attorneys general on Wednesday formally announced a global opioid settlement worth $26 billion with Johnson & Johnson and the nation’s three largest drug distributors. A trial over the New York state and two Long Island counties’ opioid suit (Nassau County is a client of Napoli Shkolnik)…Read the article

As part of an upcoming nationwide settlement, the nation’s three largest drug distributors on Tuesday struck a $1.1 billion opioid deal with New York’s attorney general and exited a closely watched jury trial. “Unlike the national deal, it is not contingent on the rest of the country or other states joining,” Hunter Shkolnik of Napoli…Read the article

And so Tuesday’s opening statements served up easily digestible charts, graphics and pictures seasoned very lightly with the underlying legal issues, such as drug company obligations under the Controlled Substances Act to watch for suspicious opioid orders. Hunter Shkolnik, for example, presented the jurors with an AmerisourceBergen Corp. investigator’s email that had the subject line…Read the article