Articles by Janelle Lawrence, Riley Griffin and Jef Feeley

Jury Finds Insys Founder, Execs Guilty of Racketeering in Opioid Sales

Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor was convicted of a racketeering conspiracy that drove sales of a highly addictive opioid while contributing to a nationwide epidemic. Federal jurors in Boston found that Kapoor conspired with four other executives to bribe …

U.S. Charges New York Drug Firm Executives with Opioid Distribution Conspiracy

Federal prosecutors unveiled the first criminal charges against pharmaceutical executives for illegally diverting opioids, accusing the former chief executive officer and the head of compliance at a major U.S. drug distributor with a narcotics conspiracy. Laurence F. Doud III, who …

J&J Asks Federal Court to Assume Baby Powder Lawsuits from State Courts

Johnson & Johnson wants a federal judge to take over more than 2,000 baby-powder lawsuits it faces instead of allowing the cases to be heard by state-court juries, where the company has a mixed record. The world’s largest maker of …

Jury Sides with J&J in Latest Talcum-Cancer Claim

Johnson & Johnson won the latest trial over claims its iconic baby powder can cause cancer, as a jury in Long Beach, California, rejected a lawsuit brought by a 65-year-old retired teacher who claimed the product was contaminated with asbestos. …

Opioid Trial Winds Down; Insys Execs Deny Bribing Doctors, Duping Insurers

A U.S. prosecutor portrayed Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor and other former executives as greedy and heartless during closing arguments in their racketeering trial over the promotion of the opioid painkiller Subsys. Kapoor and four other ex-Insys managers “exploited” …

Oklahoma Alters Suit Against Opioid Drugmakers Before Trial

The state of Oklahoma narrowed its case against drug makers including Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Allergan Plc, dropping fraud and other allegations while pressing ahead with a public-nuisance claim. The decision, revealed in a two-page court …

Family Behind Purdue Pharma Facing Second Suit Over Role in Opioid Crisis

The billionaire family that owns opioid-maker Purdue Pharma LP has been accused by local governments in a new lawsuit of causing the nationwide public-health crisis involving pain-killing medicines that has left hundreds of thousands of Americans dead from overdoses. More …

CBS Settles $1.25M Investor Lawsuit over ‘Improper’ Redstone Compensation

CBS Corp. directors agreed to settle for $1.25 million investors’ claims that network owner Sumner Redstone received millions of dollars in improper compensation after he became incapacitated in 2014. The money — coming from insurance covering CBS’s officers and directors …

Anthem, Cigna in Court Battles Over Failed Merger

There’s no dispute that a $48.9 billion merger announced in 2015 between health insurers Anthem Inc. and Cigna Corp. imploded two years later over antitrust concerns. Now, the question is whether one owes the other billions for the deal’s failure. …

J&J Reported to Settle Most Pinnacle Hip Implant Lawsuits

Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest maker of health-care products, has agreed to settle the bulk of consumers’ lawsuits alleging it sold defective artificial hips and misled patients about their dangers, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “The parties …