Current Events

Pharmaceutical drug maker GlaxoSmithKline will pay $3 billion and plead guilty to federal charges to resolve a slew of criminal and civil issues stemming from its use of kickbacks, mis-branding and other misconduct to market drugs such as Paxil, Wellbutrin and Advair, the U.S. government announced.

The agreement is the largest healthcare fraud settlement in history, spanning nearly every state, according to the Justice Department. It’s also the largest payment ever by a drug company.

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Roche Holding AG (ROG) must pay a total of $18 million in damages to two former users of its Accutane acne drug who blamed the medicine for their bowel disease, a New Jersey jury ruled.

Jurors in state court in Atlantic City deliberated about six hours today before that finding officials of Basel, Switzerland-based Roche failed to properly warn Kathleen Rossitto and Riley Wilkinson that Accutane could cause inflammatory bowel disease. Rossitto and Wilkinson were each awarded $9 million in compensatory damages. At the same time, the panel rejected claims by two other former users of the drug.

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Schumer says painkiller abuse by mothers is the same kind of scourge as the problem of crack babies and society risks doing 'too little, too late'

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The long, nagging problem of reports of unintended acceleration and sticky pedals just won't go away for Toyota Motor Corp.

The Japanese automaker on Friday expanded its 2009 recall of vehicles for pedal entrapment to include 154,000 model year 2010 RX 350 and RX 450h (hybrid) SUVs from its Lexus luxury line, the first new recall for the issue since early 2011.

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U.S. health regulators censured Covidien Plc for failing to promptly address complaints related to deaths and serious injuries linked to its devices used in thoracic surgery.

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Watchdog group Public Citizen urged U.S. regulators on Tuesday not to approve Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc's experimental diet pill lorcaserin, citing concerns it could increase patients' risk of heart valve damage.

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Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) (JNJ), the biggest health-care products maker, continued to sell a vaginal mesh implant for nine months after U.S. regulators told the company to stop marketing the device, according to court records.

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Metal-on-metal hip implants made by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Zimmer Holding Inc. (ZMH) need more consistent testing to help lower high failure rates that lead to risky replacement surgeries, a report by regulators said.

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Malpractice claims dipped dramatically among Massachusetts physicians after they began using electronic medical records, according to new research, although it's not clear whether the record-keeping was connected to the decline in claims.

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Almost 16,800 adverse events associated with metal-on-metal hip implants were reported in the U.S. from 2000-2011, regulators said.

The reports almost quadrupled to 682 in 2008 from the year earlier, and rose again after a unit of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) began recalling hip devices in 2010, according to report posted today on the Food and Drug Administration’s website. Adverse event reports in 2011 totaled 12,137 for the metal-on-metal devices, compared with 6,332 associated with other types of hip implants, according to the FDA document.

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Johnson & Johnson said Friday that it would add about $600 million to its reserves to cover a possible settlement of allegations that it paid kickbacks to a company that dispenses drugs to nursing homes. Johnson & Johnson said it would take a one-time charge in the second quarter to cover a possible settlement of a whistle-blower lawsuit.

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