Nearly 20 Pharma Giants Named in Antitrust Class Action Lawsuit Over National Opioid Epidemic

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Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center, Infirmary Health Hospitals, Inc. and Monroe County Hospital have filed a proposed antitrust class action lawsuit against a who’s-who of 19 pharmaceutical industry heavyweights over their alleged roles in the nation’s opioid epidemic. The 134-page lawsuit, filed in Mississippi, seeks to recover monetary damages resulting from the defendants’ alleged “false, deceptive, and unfair marketing and/or unlawful diversion” of prescription opioid drugs, which the case asserts greatly contributed to the national crisis of overdose deaths and addictions.

From the lawsuit:

“[The plaintiffs] bring this suit against the manufacturers of prescription opioids. The manufacturers aggressively pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would only rarely succumb to drug addiction. These pharmaceutical companies aggressively advertised to and persuaded doctors to prescribe highly addictive, dangerous opioids, and turned patients into drug addicts for their own corporate profit. Such actions were unlawful.”

Among the defendants are also distributors of opioid medications, who the case alleges breached their legal duties under federal law “to monitor, detect, investigate, and report suspicious orders of prescription opiates.”