Johnson & Johnson, Oklahoma Spar in Opioid Trial
29 Mai 2019 - 12:24AM
Dow Jones News
By Sara Randazzo
NORMAN, Okla -- Greed caused Oklahoma's devastating opioid
epidemic, the state's attorney general told a packed courtroom
here.
Mike Hunter's office is seeking to hold drug maker Johnson &
Johnson accountable for widespread opioid addiction in a closely
watched trial that began Tuesday. The pharmaceutical and
consumer-products giant has become the lone defendant in the
state's case after two other drug makers settled.
The case, which is being heard before a judge and not a jury, is
the first to go to trial of some 2,000 lawsuits filed by states,
local governments and Native American tribes alleging the
pharmaceutical industry helped fuel the opioid crisis.
The state argues that Johnson & Johnson followed in the
footsteps of Purdue Pharma LP, whose 1996 introduction of OxyContin
is widely seen as the beginning of a shift by drug companies toward
promoting opioids for widespread pain. That shift played down the
risk of addiction and created a public-health crisis, plaintiffs
argue, for which the pharmaceutical industry should now pay to
alleviate.
"If you oversupply, people will die," Brad Beckworth, a
Texas-based attorney representing Oklahoma, said repeatedly during
his opening remarks.
Larry Ottaway, an attorney for New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson
& Johnson, said its drugs helped people manage chronic pain, an
affliction he called "soul stealing" that can lead to suicide and
depression. The painkillers' packaging, he said, clearly stated
their risks and followed all U.S. Food and Drug Administration
regulations.
Purdue agreed to pay $270 million in March to settle Oklahoma's
claims, but the company's marketing of OxyContin is shaping up to
be a presence in the trial. Mr. Beckworth said both Purdue and
Johnson & Johnson marketed their opioid painkillers as drugs
"to start with," in contrast to earlier practices that opioids
should only be used for severe or end-of-life pain.
Johnson & Johnson makes Duragesic, a fentanyl patch the
company says has never been widely abused. It divested another
opioid painkiller, Nucynta, in 2015.
The state cited two businesses Johnson & Johnson owned that
made the narcotic raw materials and active pharmaceutical
ingredients used in drug companies' painkillers, which Mr.
Beckworth said "opened the floodgates for other drugs to be
sold."
Mr. Ottaway said the company followed federal guidelines on the
volume of active pharmaceutical ingredients it could produce.
Johnson & Johnson argued its drugs accounted for a fraction of
those taken in Oklahoma and that an influx of illegal heroin and
fentanyl were the real culprits of overdose deaths.
Mr. Hunter, a Republican, called the prescription opioid
epidemic "the worst man-made public-health crisis in the history of
our country and the state." From 2007 to 2017, he said, 4,653
Oklahomans died from unintentional prescription opioid
overdoses.
Oklahoma's opioid-overdose rate surpassed the national rate for
years, peaking in 2009 at 15.5 deaths per 100,000 people. By 2017,
its rate had fallen to 10.2 per 100,000, ranking it in the middle
of all states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. West Virginia led the nation with 49.6 deaths per
100,000.
The lawsuits filed against drugmakers have piled up over the
last two years, with the majority consolidated in federal court in
Cleveland. Two test cases there are scheduled for an October trial,
which will become the next focal point in the litigation.
Oklahoma slimmed down its case in the run-up to trial, leaving
as its sole claim that Johnson & Johnson created a "public
nuisance" through its drug marketing. If Cleveland County District
Judge Thad Balkman rules in the state's favor, it can seek to
recoup the cost to abate the nuisance but not ask for damages above
and beyond that. The state has estimated abatement costs at $12.7
billion to $17.5 billion, which Johnson & Johnson calls
excessive.
A third defendant, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., agreed
Sunday to settle the case for $85 million.
Attorneys and journalists from around the U.S. descended on the
college town of Norman to watch and participate in the
proceedings.
The outcome of the two-month trial will be decided solely by
Judge Balkman. As he reminded the crowd at the outset of the trial,
"this is a court of law, not a court of public opinion."
Write to Sara Randazzo at sara.randazzo@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 28, 2019 18:09 ET (22:09 GMT)
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