Weekly Mass Torts Bulletin 2023-August-21

Maryland To Receive $24M In Opioid Settlement

Maryland has been awarded $24 million in a massive settlement with four pharmaceutical companies that have faced a slew of lawsuits over their involvement in the deadly opioid epidemic.

The Maryland Attorney General announced the payment, which is part of the payment in 2023. In total, Maryland and its local jurisdictions will receive approximately $400 million over 18 years under the settlement, which last year ended a lawsuit against drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and Amerisource Bergen, and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson. 

To date, Maryland and its subdivisions have received more than $84 million to alleviate the harms of the opioid crisis. Drug companies have faced a wave of lawsuits across the country over allegations they illegally marketed and distributed opioids and ignored warning signs that the drugs were contributing to drug abuse that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Most states and local governments have sued the companies that agreed to a $26 billion settlement reached in February 2022.

Money is now flowing into these regulators. According to the Maryland Attorney General's Office, the subdivisions will receive more than $13.6 million from the 2023 settlement, including $4.8 million in direct payments and $8.8 million in reduced grants.

The remaining $10 million in the final $24 million payment will go to the state Substance Compensation Fund for substance-related reduction programs.

The attorney general said in a statement that drug addiction is the source of so much pain and devastation in our communities, tearing families apart and leaving a trail of suffering. This ongoing stream of payments from these pain-causing people will help defuse the opioid crisis and bring relief to communities across Maryland.

The full list of subdivisions that have entered into the settlement and are expected to receive funds is available on the Attorney General's Office website.

Large, densely populated jurisdictions will receive substantial sums. For example, Baltimore County will receive a total of $2.8 million in 2023, split between direct funding and grants.

Notably, the city of Baltimore was not among the subdivisions participating in the settlement. According to the filing, the city of Baltimore decided last year to drop the settlement in the hope of winning a larger sum by pursuing the lawsuit on its own.

The loss of one of the largest and most populous jurisdictions in Maryland means that the overall financial settlement coming to Maryland will be smaller. The settlement is partly based on the number of jurisdictions that agree to participate, as drug companies want to get rid of as many lawsuits as possible for money.

Purdue's $6B Opioid Settlement Barred By Supreme Court

A multi-billion dollar bankruptcy deal by Purdue Pharma that would have shielded the company's Sackler family owners from civil litigation relating to the opioid crisis was temporarily barred by the Supreme Court.

The developer of the painkiller OxyContin, Purdue, reached a settlement with all 50 states and other parties, and the Supreme Court also announced that it would review a U.S. Bankruptcy trustee's appeal to that agreement.

The judgement instructed parties to submit papers on the issue of whether bankruptcy courts can accept a Chapter 11 reorganization that waives non-debtor third-party rights "without the claimants' consent."

The ruling granting the requested hold, which was requested by the Department of Justice, did not receive any dissent from any of the court's justices.

In a court document, the DOJ had contended that the Sacklers' relief from civil culpability "is not authorized by the Bankruptcy Code, constitutes an abuse of the bankruptcy system, and raises serious constitutional questions."

As a condition of the settlement, the Sackler family promised to give $6 billion over the following two decades. The deal also requires Purdue to increase its financial contribution after it transforms into a separate corporation, the revenues of which will be utilized to address the opioid misuse issue.

The top court will hear arguments in this matter in December. In a statement, Purdue Pharma stated that it is confident in the legitimacy of a Plan of Reorganization that has received almost unanimous approval and is hopeful the Supreme Court would concur. The company went on to say that they are disappointed that the U.S. Trustee has been able to single-handedly delay billions of dollars in value that should be used for victim compensation, communities across the country combating the opioid crisis, and overdose rescue medications despite having no real stake in the outcome of this process.

A request for comment was not immediately answered by a representative for several of the Sacklers who are parties to the settlement. In May, Purdue and hundreds of municipal governments in the US struck a deal.

The Stamford, Connecticut-based company's Sackler family agreed to give up ownership of it as part of the agreement. The proposal was authorized in May by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The bankruptcy trustee then requested that the Supreme Court halt the agreement and hear his argument against it.

Long-term Use Of Heartburn Drugs Linked To Dementia Risk

The results of a recent study state that long-term adverse effects of Nexium, Prilosec, and other proton pump inhibitor (PPI) treatments may increase the risk of dementia.

These findings raise fresh questions about the dangers of the common heartburn medication, which many people use for years. According to the University of Minnesota researchers, those who used proton pump inhibitors for more than four years had a 33% higher chance of developing dementia.

GERD, heartburn, stomach and small intestine ulcers, and esophageal inflammation are all conditions that can be treated with PPIs by lowering the quantity of acid in the stomach. The family of drugs also includes several generic alternatives to Nexium, Prilosec, and Prevacid in addition to the brand-name drugs Protonix, Zegerid, AcipHex, Dexilant, and Vimovo.

Although the medications have long been marketed as safe and effective, leading many to believe they have few serious side effects, the makers of Nexium, Protonix, Prilosec, and Prevacid have been the target of thousands of lawsuits alleging that these products caused plaintiffs to suffer from acute kidney injury, chronic kidney disease, end-stage renal failure, and other unanticipated health issues.

In this most recent study, data from 5,712 individuals who were a member of a community-based cohort from 1987 to 2017 were analyzed. The participants' average age was 75. Researchers examined PPI use and conducted yearly phone calls to check for instances of newly diagnosed dementia.

They discovered that, throughout the course of the trial, participants reported 585 occurrences of dementia. Short-term users of Nexium, Prilosec, or other heartburn medications had no higher risk of dementia, but those who took these medications for more than 4.4 years had a 33% greater risk of dementia.

The researchers concluded that further study is required to comprehend potential mechanisms between cumulative PPI usage and dementia development. This study presents Class III evidence that there is a greater risk of newly diagnosed dementia among those 45 and older who had taken prescription PPIs for more than 4.4 years.

In recent years, nearly 13,000 product liability lawsuits have been brought against the manufacturers of Nexium, Prilosec, Prevacid, and related medications. Each of these lawsuits makes the same claims that PPI users suffered from acute kidney injury, chronic kidney disease, end-stage renal failure, and other side effects.

As part of an MDL, or multi-district litigation, the lawsuit has been centralized before the U.S. District Judge in New Jersey since late 2019 due to similar concerns of fact and law presented in hundreds of complaints filed throughout the federal court system.

The judge established a "bellwether" program where a small number of lawsuits that are representative of issues raised throughout the claims have undergone case-specific discovery and been prepared for a series of early trial dates. This came about after coordinated discovery into common issues that affect all of the cases.

If a deal is not made by October 10th, the first bellwether trial for Nexium kidney injury will be held. The outcomes are anticipated to assist the parties in gauging how jurors may react to specific evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation, even if they are not binding on subsequent cases. However, if the parties have not made any progress in settling their disputes after this year's and the following year's trials, the judge may begin remanding specific cases back to U.S. District Courts nationwide for specific trials.

Fall In Glyphosate Sales Affects Bayer's Profits

Bayer said that the lower prognosis for its Crop Science subsidiary and anticipated flat sales of glyphosate-based herbicides were the key factors behind last month's reduction in its full-year profits estimate.

In an unscheduled announcement last month, the German manufacturer of pharmaceuticals and pesticides stated that it expected 2023 group earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), adjusted for one-offs, to be between 11.3 billion euros ($12.5 billion) and 11.8 billion euros on a currency-adjusted basis, down from the 13.5 billion euros reported for 2022.

It stated in a statement that the Crop Science agricultural business' adjusted EBITDA margin for 2023 sales would be roughly 21%, down from the 25% forecast made in May. Divisional sales, after accounting for exchange rates, would be down around 5% rather than up about 1.5% as previously reported.

Since taking the helm in June, the CEO of a former Roche (ROG.S) executive has had some difficulties. Cost inflation, dry weather reducing farmer demand, and a decline in pricing of glyphosate-based weedkillers from last year's highs when revenues were inflated by rivals' production outages have all impacted Bayer's primary agricultural sector.

The profit margin for prescription medicine sales would be around 28% this year, down from a previous aim of more than 29%, and not up by about 1% as had been anticipated. Despite being the smallest of Bayer's three businesses, sales of non-prescription consumer health products increased by 5% this year.

Additionally, due to impairment charges of 2.3 billion euros, Bayer reported a net loss of 1.89 billion euros for the second quarter. Earlier, it had stated that early data indicated anticipated goodwill impairments of around 2.5 billion euros, which resulted in a second-quarter net loss of 2 billion euros.