PITTSBURGH – Through an alliance of District Attorney Stephen Zappala and private lawyers, Allegheny County has filed suit against 10 different drug manufacturers, for damages connected to both the companies’ alleged false marketing of opioid drugs and the county’s combating the use and abuse of opioids.
Allegheny County filed suit in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on Feb. 3 versus Allergan, Cephalon, Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals, Endo, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp., Cardinal Health and McKesson Corp.
“Fueled by dangerous prescription opioid drugs, Allegheny County, like many other cities, counties and states across the country, is now engulfed in an opioid epidemic, which has led to a public health and safety crisis of an unprecedented and disastrous nature,” the suit says.
“The current epidemic in the county is directly attributable to the commercial activities of the defendants and their false, deceptive and improper marketing, promotion, sale and distribution of prescription opioids for medical use nationally, regionally and in Allegheny County, in violation of the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.”
Allegheny County says the defendants’ brand-name drugs such as Kadian, Fentora, Opana and Duragesic are powerful narcotic painkillers which should only be used to treat short-term pain or for end-of-life care, and were never intended for long-term use of chronic pain.
However, the county says the defendants, starting in the mid-1990’s began to market their drugs as being suitable to use for just such a purpose, in effect disregarding the prevailing medical and scientific opinions suggesting otherwise.
“The opioid epidemic currently plaguing the county and its deleterious impact on public health and safety have created overlapping crises for the county, its residents and the Allegheny County community as a whole, and has adversely affected public and private health plans and third-party payors of prescription drug benefits of these health plans and the County and its agencies,” according to the lawsuit.
Allegheny County pointed to both the “grim toll of human suffering” on users of the drugs and their families, as well as a “sharp deterioration of public safety, order, economic productivity and the quality of life in the county.”
As a result, the county states that it has incurred large, burdensome, unnecessary and avoidable costs in the discharge of their duties.
For violation of the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, the plaintiff is seeking, jointly and severally, an injunction preventing further violations of that law and for the defendants to accurately market, educate and inform the public as to the risks of using opioids, restoring to Allegheny County the costs of combating the opioid epidemic in terms of emergency care, hospitalization and other costs, a civil penalty of $1,000 for each violation and a penalty not to exceed $3,000 for each violation when the victim is 60 years old or older, disgorgement of all monies attained through violating the law in Allegheny County and such other and further relief as the Court deems just and appropriate.
The plaintiff is represented by William G. Brucker of Brucker & Porter in Pittsburgh and Jerry R. DeSiderato, Silvio A. Trentalange and Timothy J. Ford of Dilworth Paxson, in Philadelphia.
The defendants are represented to this point by Douglas Keith Rosenblum and Marc S. Raspanti of Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, Harvey Bartle IV of Morgan Lewis & Bockius, David F. Abernethy of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath, all also in Philadelphia.
Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas case GD-21-000967
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com