January 5, 2009

The plaintiff's bar, in concert with certain bulk drug buyers (particularly state and local governments), has ginned up a giant campaign demanding damages over drug companies' promotion of off-label uses of their compounds. Now Beck & Herrmann bring news that a federal court in multi-district litigation against Amgen endorsed the view that the lawsuits at issue in that MDL were "really prohibited back-door attempts at private enforcement of [Food, Drug & Chemical Act] violations. ... The court didn't just dismiss this or that count of the plaintiffs' complaint. Rather, the forbidden attempt at private FDCA enforcement against purportedly illegal promotion was so thoroughly woven through the entire complaint, that for now anyway, the entire MDL is dismissed (albeit with leave to replead)."