Pubdate: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) Copyright: 2004 Lexington Herald-Leader Contact: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232 (Chronic Pain) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone) COURT DOWNGRADES OXYCONTIN SUIT In a major victory for the maker of OxyContin, the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday downgraded a closely watched lawsuit that accused the company of over-promoting the narcotic pain killer, injuring many people who took it. The state's high court, in a 4-3 decision, stripped away class-action certification granted to the suit in 2002 by a trial court in Butler County, near Cincinnati. That earlier decision had exposed Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut drug company, to a potentially huge damages verdict on behalf of every Ohio resident who claimed physical or emotional harm from the drug. The case was the only one out of hundreds filed across the nation in the past three years to achieve class-action status. "We are gratified that the Ohio Supreme Court followed the law with respect to class certification and ruled in our favor," Howard R. Udell, a Purdue Pharma executive vice president and chief legal officer, said in a statement yesterday. David Ewing, a Louisville trial lawyer, said he and the team of well-known plaintiffs' lawyers from Cincinnati and Louisville who had filed the class action suit haven't yet decided whether to ask for a reconsideration. "If you add up the judges, more said it should be certified as a class action than didn't -- the trial judge, the appeals court and three of the seven Supreme Court justices," Ewing said. "But (Purdue) had the four that mattered," he said, referring to the split decision. The Ohio case was not only important because of its special legal status but also because it produced stacks of company documents that detailed how company marketers had in just a few years turned the obscure pain pill into a "blockbuster" drug with current annual sales of about $1.9 billion. Dissolving the class action doesn't end the suit, Ewing said. Ohio residents who claim injuries from OxyContin "don't go away," he said. They can continue to sue individually, though he called that "a monumental job" for a lone plaintiff. Purdue introduced OxyContin, which contains large amounts of narcotic in a time-release pill, in the mid-1990s. By 2001, many prescription drug abusers had learned to defeat the time-release formula to obtain a heroin-like high. Widespread reports of addiction and death followed, particularly in Eastern Kentucky and other Appalachian regions. That led to allegations by scores of state and federal authorities and drug addiction experts that the company had recklessly marketed the pill for maximum profits, disregarding its dangers. By last year, an embattled Purdue was defending itself in hundreds of lawsuits nationally. Last month, Purdue settled for $10 million one of the earliest of those suits, brought in 2001 by the West Virginia attorney general, who alleged dishonest marketing of OxyContin. The agreement calls for Purdue to pay the state $10 million over four years. The state will spend the money on such programs as law enforcement training, and local drug abuse education and rehabilitation. For some time after the litigation flood began, Purdue had boasted that it had never settled or lost a case. It admitted no wrongdoing in the West Virginia settlement. The lawsuit had sought to recover more than $30 million that state agencies said they had paid because of people's addiction to the painkiller. It claimed that Purdue Pharma did not tell doctors, pharmacists and patients about the drug's addictive qualities in its push for higher sales. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek