More Pharmaceutical Misadventures - Actelion Damages Upheld, Genzyme (Sanofi Subsidiary) Settled, Merck Fined

The march of legal settlements by large health care organizations goes on, albeit with ever more quiet footsteps as the number of journalists available to amplify their sounds declines.  Last week we noted the shutdown of PharmaLot, a journalistic blog edited by Ed Silverman that was one of the few that reported fearlessly on the pharmaceutical industry, warts and all.So we dedicate this round up of legal settlements by pharmaceutical companies announced last month, December, 2013, to Ed Silverman, who reported on two of the cases below, and whose reports have been silenced by the shutdown of the PharmaLot web-site by its corporate owner. In alphabetical order by name of the pharmaceutical company, Actelion $40.7 Million Damages for Keeping Possibly Competitive Drug Off the Market UpheldThis story was reported by Ed Silverman on Pharmalot, and by the San Francisco Chronicle.  The basics, according to the latter article, were:A state appeals court has upheld $407 million in damages against the Swiss biotechnology giant Actelion and its executives for buying a Bay Area company and using it to thwart another firm's plans to market a competing hypertension drug in the United States.The drug, Fasudil, is manufactured by Ashai Kasei Pharma Corp of  Japan for treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, an often fatal disease of the lung arteries. In June 2006, Asahi signed a licensing agreement with the South San Francisco biotech firm CoTherix, which agr...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: Actelion adverse effects deception Genzyme legal settlements Merck restraint of competition Sanofi-Aventis Source Type: blogs