Five US drug manufacturers are being sued amid claims they overstated the benefits of prescription opioids
Five major pharmaceutical manufacturers in the US are being sued amid claims they overstated the benefits, and trivialised the addictive qualities, of prescription opioid painkillers.
The lawsuit is being brought by the attorney-general of the state of Ohio and alleges that an intentional misrepresentation of the risks posed by the drugs, including OxyContin and Percocet, has contributed to a worsening opioid addiction epidemic.
The companies being sued are Purdue Pharma; Endo Health Solutions; Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, and its subsidiary, Cephalon; Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals; and Allergan.
Opioid drugs, including prescription painkillers and heroin, killed more than 33,000 people in the United States in 2015, more than any year on record, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Ohio last year, 2.3 million residents were prescribed opioids, nearly a fifth of the state’s population, which in in turn helped fuel heroin abuse, State Attorney General Mike DeWine said.
“This lawsuit is about justice, it’s about fairness, it’s about what is right,” Mr DeWine said. “These drug companies knew that what they were doing was wrong and they did it anyway.”
The drug companies are fighting the charges, with one saying the allegations are “legally and factually unfounded”.
A spokeswoman for Janssen said the company had acted responsibly regarding its opioid pain medications, which were approved by the FDA and carried mandated risk warnings on their labels.
