Health Systems Could Be Next In National Quest for Opioid Accountability

Health systems and companies collecting drug prescription data could be caught in the crosshairs of opioid liability following a federal jury finding that three major pharmacy chains helped create the nationwide addiction crisis by failing to properly monitor opioid prescriptions, reports Bloomberg News. Legal observers say the verdict marks a shift in the direction of lawsuits, and that plaintiffs’ bar will start eyeing other entities that play a role in the dispersal of opioid prescriptions. The argument that prevailed against the pharmacy chains was that they allegedly failed to establish monitoring systems to detect illegitimate opioid prescriptions.

“The same lines of argument that succeeded against the pharmacies here—that there were red flags that compliance systems should have picked up—could work against practices that prescribed large numbers of opioids,” said David Noll, a Rutgers law professor focusing on complex litigation. Aside from opioid manufacturers, marketers behind alcohol and other drugs should also be on watch, attorneys say. Among the marketers at risk of liability are “peripheral organizations” that drugmakers like Purdue Pharma engaged to “drum up market demand” for opioids. Also potentially on the line are “data aggregators” that collect data from pharmacies and health-care providers for marketing information to sell to manufacturers.