Latest Drugs Headlines
All the headlines from our Drugs Topic Page, ordered by recency.
New York DFS Issues Final Reg Requiring Insurers to Include Formulary Exception
Oct 1 2018 // The New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) is taking new actions to address the opioid crisis in New York State. DFS issued a final regulation requiring insurers to include a formulary exception process for...
Fatal Drug Overdoses in Ohio Increase to Record Number
Sep 26 2018 // Fatal drug overdoses increased to a record 4,854 last year in Ohio, a 20 percent rise compared with the previous year, according to information reported to the state. Data on unintentional drug deaths provided to the Ohio...
Workers Overdose On the Job and Employers Struggle to Respond
Sep 26 2018 // PORTLAND, Ore. — Jimmy Sullivan prepared for his job as a bricklayer the same way every morning for years: injecting a shot of heroin before leaving his car. The first time he overdosed on the job, in 2013 at a Virginia...
Tennessee Drug Overdose Deaths Rise Again in 2017
Sep 26 2018 // The number of Tennessee residents who died of drug overdoses has risen more than 8 percent, setting another record in 2017. The state Health Department said 1,776 Tennesseans died from overdoses last year, the most since...
Cigna Says Express Scripts Acquisition Passes Antitrust Review
Sep 17 2018 // Health insurer Cigna Corp.’s $52 billion acquisition of pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co. has passed U.S. antitrust scrutiny, the companies said on Monday, allowing them to proceed with a...
Oregon Sues OxyContin Manufacturer Claiming it Minimized Risks
Sep 17 2018 // Oregon’s attorney general has sued the pharmaceutical company that makes OxyContin, saying it misrepresented the risks and benefits of the drug and lied to a state regulatory agency to maximize profits. A spokesman...
Purdue Includes Free Opioid Treatment Drugs in Settlement Offer
Sep 14 2018 // The company that created OxyContin is offering free doses of an opioid-abuse treatment as part of its offer to resolve more than 1,000 lawsuits accusing the drugmaker of helping fuel the opioid crisis, according to people...
Vermont Sues Opioid Drugmaker Over Marketing Practices
Sep 7 2018 // Vermont on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against drugmaker Purdue over what it called deceptive marketing of OxyContin and other prescription opioid painkillers that the attorney general says helped lead to the drug crisis in...
Labor Secretary: Cost Savings in California Workers’ Comp $1.3B Annually
Sep 6 2018 // Cost savings in the California worker’s compensation system from reforms made five years ago are far more massive than projected, according to David Lanier, secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development...
West Virginia Drug Overdose Deaths Reached Record High in 2017
Sep 6 2018 // New West Virginia health information shows drug overdose deaths have increased to more than 1,000 in a one-year period for the first time. The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the West Virginia Health Statistics...
California Court Rules Workers’ Comp Law Provides Exclusive Remedy in Utilization Review Case
Sep 3 2018 // The California Supreme Court issued an opinion in late August that utilization review physicians cannot be sued for malpractice, upholding established law that the workers’ comp system provides injured employees an...
South Carolina Supreme Court Appoints Judge to Manage Opioid Lawsuits
Aug 27 2018 // South Carolina’s high court has appointed a single judge to handle any lawsuits related to opioids in the state system. On Thursday, the state Supreme Court assigned Circuit Court Judge Perry Gravely to the task....
California High Court: Workers’ Comp Law Provides Exclusive Remedy in Utilization Review Case
Aug 23 2018 // The California Supreme Court issued an opinion today that utilization review physicians cannot be sued for malpractice, upholding established law that the workers’ comp system provides injured employees an exclusive...
Brand Name Drug Maker Not Liable for Injuries from Generic Version: Court
Aug 23 2018 // A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday tossed a $3 million verdict against GlaxoSmithKline over the suicide of an attorney who took a generic version of the company’s antidepressant Paxil, finding the company could not be...
Study Looks at Polypharmacy Claims in California Workers’ Comp
Aug 17 2018 // A study from the California Workers’ Compensation Institute shows the likelihood that indemnity was paid on a workers’ comp claim increased with the number of concurrent prescriptions the injured worker was...
President Trump Urges U.S. Suit Against Opioid Manufacturers
Aug 17 2018 // President Donald Trump said Thursday he wants the U.S. government to sue pharmaceutical companies that manufacture opioids as part of his efforts to halt an epidemic of drug addiction. Trump said he’d like to bring a...
On the Side, Express Scripts Eyes Distributing High-Priced Specialty Drugs
Aug 15 2018 // Express Scripts Holding Co. built a multi-billion enterprise pressuring drug companies to lower their prices for U.S. patients. Now it is quietly building a side business: getting paid to help drug companies dispense a new...
Opioids Blamed for 11.5% Spike in Kentucky Overdose Deaths Last Year
Aug 15 2018 // Drug overdose deaths in Kentucky are increasing despite a drop in opioid prescriptions and heroin use. A new report from the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy says 1,565 people died from drug overdoses in 2017....
Icahn Halts Bid to Block Cigna’s Takeover of Express Scripts
Aug 14 2018 // Activist investor Carl Icahn has dropped his fight to block Cigna Corp.’s $54 billion acquisition of Express Scripts Holding Co. after two prominent shareholder advisory firms came out in support of the...
2nd Chinese Manufacturer Makes Tainted, Carcinogenic Heart Drug: EU
Aug 10 2018 // The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Friday that a second Chinese contract manufacturer, Zhejiang Tianyu, had produced a common blood pressure and heart drug with an impurity that could cause cancer. The alarm over...
