The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on April 28 issued a long-awaited proposal to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, a major victory for anti-smoking advocates but one that could face stiff opposition from Big Tobacco.
ReutersWalgreens Boots Alliance and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. ignored the health risks when they created new markets for opioids, a lawyer for the city of San Francisco told a judge on April 25 during opening statements of the first trial to target manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies over the addictive pain medicines.
Endo International plc announced that the Tennessee Court of Appeals reversed a trial court judge’s order denying a motion for recusal by Endo’s wholly owned subsidiaries Endo Health Solutions Inc. and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Clay County et al. v. Purdue Pharma, L.P., et al, pending in the Circuit Court for Cumberland County, Tennessee, and remanded the case for transfer to a different judge.
ReutersJohnson & Johnson agreed to pay $99 million to settle claims by West Virginia that it helped fuel an opioid addiction crisis in the state, removing the company from an ongoing trial that began earlier in April.
ReutersWalgreens Boots Alliance Inc. supplied billions of opioid pills to drug addicts and criminals, contributing to an addiction epidemic in Florida, a lawyer for the state said on April 11 as a civil trial against the pharmacy chain got underway.
Use of classic psychedelics may lower a person’s odds of developing opioid use disorder, said a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Reuters HealthWest Virginia’s attorney general on April 4 urged a judge to hold Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., and AbbVie Inc.’s Allergen liable for causing a “tsunami” of opioid addiction in the state.
Rhode Island was set to square off on March 14 against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., as a multibillion-dollar trial begins over whether the Israeli company contributed to an opioid crisis that has caused more than 500,000 deaths over the past two decades.
As Pfizer’s antiviral Paxlovid tablets against COVID-19 roll out, the company indicated it had halted the development of the intravenous variation of the drug, PF-07304814. In other news, SaNOtize Research & Development Corp. and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd. announced that a Phase III trial of Nitric Oxide Nasal Spray (NONS) hit the primary endpoint.
The pandemic has undoubtedly altered the way of life for all Americans, but it has also shed light into the bleak statistics that are showing the opioid crisis is even worse than ever before. For the first time in history, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that nearly 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses over a 12-month period ending in March 2021, which was a little more than a 30 percent increase from the previous year.
