U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Review OxyContin Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down a request to overturn an appellate court’s decision that vacated a federal district court’s ruling dismissing a case claiming that Purdue Pharma overstated the potency of its painkiller OxyContin.

Last week’s decision in Purdue Pharma L.P. et al. v. United States, Ex Rel. May, is likely to have very little impact on the case, sources familiar with the case say.

The qui tam case, filed in 2010, alleges that Purdue fraudulently marketed OxyContin as a cheaper alternative to the drug it replaced, MS Contin, by falsely telling doctors that OxyContin (oxycodone) was twice as potent as — and, therefore, cheaper per dose than — MS Contin.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia dismissed the case and it was appealed to the Fourth Circuit, which in December 2013 remanded it back to the lower court. Purdue petitioned the Supreme Court the following March seeking a review the Fourth Circuit decision, but before the high court could weigh in, the district court dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

The matter is currently pending appeal again before the Fourth Circuit. — Jonathon Shacat