Pharmaceutical & Medical Device Law Bulletin

Mississippi plaintiffs' lawyers, battered by a 2-year fight with medical and business lobbyists, are seeking ways to undermine new laws that limit civil litigants' access and recoveries in the state that has been dubbed a 'tort hellhole.' Meanwhile, the tort reform juggernaut is rumbling into other states.

In the last several weeks, Pittsburgh-based Bayer Corp. has been rapidly settling federal lawsuits and claims involving Baycol, the anti-cholesterol drug it pulled off the market in August 2001 after it was linked to 100 deaths worldwide, two Miami law firms say.

The recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in EZ Dock Inc. v. Schafer Systems Inc., 276 F.3d 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2002) may well have an impact on the development of biotechnological and pharmaceutical inventions.

The latest rulings of importance to you and your practice.

Within the context of corporations and other commercial entities, maintaining and preserving the protections afforded by the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine require special precautions. If access to information and materials otherwise protected from disclosure is provided to individuals other than those who 'need to know,' then a corporate client may inadvertently waive the protections offered by the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine.

The latest from the FDA.

Nine years and at least $1 billion ago, class-action plaintiffs settled their claims with makers of silicone breast implants. But one rather weighty party remains unhappy with the deal ' the United States government.

The Supreme Court appears torn over what to do with Maine's discount prescription drug program, which has been challenged by the pharmaceutical industry and the Bush Administration as a violation of the federal Medicaid law.