US consumer groups pledge more lawsuits

The Stop Patient Abuse Now coalition has said it will organize consumerand patient groups across the USA to initiate a series of class-action lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies for actions which it claims prevent competition and endanger public health. The aim is to raise the financial stakes for drugmakers which engage in such behavior, says the group.

The latest class-action suit, led by the National Organzation for Women, is against Bristol-Myers Squibb for tactics which the NOW claims were used to prevent patient access to generic versions of B-MS' breast and ovarian cancer treatment Taxol (paclitaxel), an issue which is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (Marketletter September 11, 2000).

In early May, SPAN announced that the seniors' activists, the Gray Panthers, had filed suit against B-MS alleging delays in generic competition to the antianxiety drug BuSpar (buspirone: Marketletter May 7). SPAN says it is also preparing suits against AstraZeneca, if it tries to delay generic competition to its proton pump inhibitor Prilosec (omeprazole: Marketletter May 14), and Abbott Labs, if it refuses to remove its controversial hyperthyroidism drug Synthroid (levothyroxine sodium) from the market (Marketletter May 14).