Amneal Pharmaceuticals Sues To Block Colorado’s Free EpiPen Push

Reuters: Amneal Asks Court To Block Colorado's Free Allergy Pen Program 
Amneal Pharmaceuticals has sued Colorado in an effort to block a state law requiring it to provide free generic EpiPens to pharmacies In a complaint filed on Friday in federal court in Denver, Colorado, New Jersey-based Amneal said that the law, which was passed last year and took effect in January, was an illegal taking of its property under the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (Pierson, 9/23)

In other legal developments —

Bloomberg: Purdue Settlement Talks With Sacklers Extended To November
Purdue Pharma LP said its making progress in settlement talks with members of the Sackler family who own the company and won another extension of a breathing spell that’s shielded the family from civil lawsuits for years. Judge Sean Lane said Monday he’d extend through Nov. 1 an injunction that has paused suits against the Sacklers in order to continue facilitating talks with states, opioid victims and other creditors. (Randles, 9/23)

Reuters: J&J Talc Opponents Decry Bankruptcy As "Deja Vu All Over Again" 
David Molton, who represents law firms opposed to the deal, said at Monday's hearing that the third bankruptcy attempt was "doomed to fail," despite the company's efforts to present the settlement as a done deal. "J&J's bankruptcy scheme buys delay, but not peace," Molton told Lopez. "It's deja vu all over again for many of us." (Knauth, 9/23)

More pharmaceutical and tech news —

Becker's Hospital Review: Smiths Medical Recalls Ventilators After Reported Death
Smiths Medical is recalling its paraPAC Plus ventilators because of the possibility that the patient outlet connector could loosen or detach, affecting active ventilation. There has been one reported death and injury with respect to recalled ventilators, the release said. (Murphy, 9/23)

Military.com: Military Medical Commands Developing Plans To Put Freeze-Dried Plasma In Hands Of Medics, Corpsmen 
Combat medics and corpsmen may soon carry a lifesaving blood product that their counterparts in the special operations community have had for more than a decade. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization in late August for a freeze-dried plasma powder made by Octapharma USA that can sustain injured personnel who are internally hemorrhaging or bleeding out from a wound. (Kime, 9/23)

Bloomberg: Diagnostic Tests Are Missing Link In Solving Superbug Deaths
Diagnostic tests are the missing link in the fight against superbugs and will be central to preventing millions of deaths, say experts ahead of a pivotal health meeting in New York this week. Testing patients to determine exactly what illness they have could help prevent the overuse of antibiotics and the spread of drug-resistant infections, which new estimates warn could lead to the deaths of more than 39 million people globally over the next 25 years. (Furlong and Pham, 9/24)

Stat and Tradeoffs: Generic Drugs Face Three Challenges: Quality, Shortages, Biosimilars
Lisa Ann Trainor struggled to stay on top of schoolwork, hold a job or even perform basic tasks like laundry for six exhausting years. Then, in 2018, she finally found a drug that kept her ADHD in check. “It was life-changing,” Trainor recalled. “I was happy. I was functional. I had a solution to a problem I thought was never going to go away.” But just 24 months later, Trainor’s husband changed jobs. Under his new health insurance plan, she’d have to pay roughly $1,000 a month out-of-pocket for Vyvanse, a medication with no generic alternative. (Walker and Gorenstein, 9/24)