Legal

DLCA Sues Eight Pharmaceutical Companies, Alleging Opioid Monitoring Failures and Misleading Marketing

The V.I. Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs has filed a lawsuit against eight pharmaceutical companies, alleging that inadequate monitoring of suspicious opioid orders and misleading marketing practices contributed to opioid misuse and related harms in the territory. The civil complaint, filed Wednesday in V.I. Superior Court, names Alvogen, Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Apotex Corporation, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, Indivior, Mylan, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and Zydus Pharmaceuticals as defendants. DLCA alleges that the companies failed to establish or maintain adequate systems for identifying and preventing “suspicious” orders of the opioid products they manufactured and distributed. According to the complaint, Alvogen for years “disclaimed any regulatory responsibility to implement a Suspicious Order Monitoring system” and therefore operated without a formal suspicious-order monitoring program for more than a decade. The lawsuit alleges that Amneal implemented its monitoring ...