Merck has won the first trial over its Vioxx brought by a state that sought to be reimbursed for millions of dollars in payment for the withdrawn painkiller. In fact, the folks who run Louisiana’s state health plans argued they would have denied coverage for Vioxx prescriptions if they’d known the drug posed a greater heart-attack risk than rival meds. The state sought $20 million from the drugmaker.
In his ruling, US District Court Judge Eldon Fallon noted that even though pain relievers in the same class as Vioxx, called Cox-2 inhibitors, were all required by the FDA to carry a warning about heart risks, Louisiana health officials never restricted payments for those drugs. This was, by the way, the first of more than a dozen such refund lawsuits filed by states over Vioxx to go to trial (read the Merck brief filed in response to the lawsuit).
The state, however, appears unwilling to give up. Jim Duggan, a private lawyer whose firm was retained by the state for the litigation, says a meeting will be held later this to week discuss an appeal. "We are not giving up on the case," he tells the Associated Press, adding he believes the state has strong grounds for an appeal.
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The state, however, appears afraid to accord up. Jim Duggan, a clandestine advocate whose close was retained by the accompaniment for the litigation, says a affair will be captivated after this to anniversary altercate an appeal. We are not giving up on the case,” he tells the Associated Press, abacus he believes the accompaniment has able area for an appeal.
Thanks for posting this. It would appear that the P&T committee had access to patient safety information that might have helped prescribers and dispensers prescribe more judiciously based on all of the medical evidence. Although the information/evidence of Cox 2 cardiotoxicity was paid for with tax dollars, this patient safety information does not appear to have been made available to Medicaid particiapting providers and/or policyholders by the P&T committee and/or certain others who may have been in a position to warn about the cardio safety risks.
I'll have a longer piece on this up, on mine shortly, but the Louisiana outcome is likely to be the exception, rather than the rule, here.
During the early part of this decade (2000 to 2005), Louisiana's state Medicade machinery was essentially a "captive" of pharma, by rule of local law. The state had no statutory authority to negotiate drug prices with the pharma companies -- so the judge ruled Lousisana couldn't (lawfully) have reduced the price it paid for Vioxx, even if it had shown that it would have desired to do so -- had it known about the elevated CV risks before Merck withdrew the drug from the market.
In the larger commercial states: California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, for example (each of which currently have similar suits pending against Merck), the states DO have the right to negotiate/reduce pricing on the state's "formulary" drugs.
This may well be a case of Merck's "winning the battle, but losing the war" -- even if the appeal in Louisiana is ultimately unavailing.
Namaste
Okay -- mine is up, now -- along with a significant portion of the judge's own reasoning, on the history of Medicaid and various state "formulary" pricing tiers.
Namaste, and happy Fourth to all (if I don't find time to pop bakc in here until after the long weekend). . . .