Can you recall what you were doing back in March of this year? To be more precise the day before St. Patty's Day and the day after the Ides. No? Well, apparently the defendants in the Risperdal and Invega Products Liability Cases pending in California state court were celebrating but they forgot to invite us to the party. We just learned about the very nice preemption decision entered by the trial court in that litigation. Since it's never too late to celebrate a preemption victory, here are the highlights.
Before we get into the case specifics, the court's general preemption analysis merits a minute of our time. '[I]f the tort plaintiff's failure to warn theory was already tested by FDA action or inaction or would have required the use of a label on a prescription drug which the FDA would have prohibited," the claim is preempted. Risperal and Invega Product Liability Cases, 2017 WL 4100102 at *5 (Cal. Super. Mar. 16, 2017). What remains for private plaintiffs to challenge in a tort setting, therefore, is the adequacy of the label or the reasonableness of the manufacturer in updating the label based on new or additional information not already considered by the FDA. Id.
In discussing whether information was presented to the FDA for consideration, of course, fraud-on-the-FDA and Buckman enter the discussion. The court nicely summarized the public policy reasons supporting Buckman preemption:
The understandable concern is that allowing a private right of action for "fraud on the FDA" would embroil the agency's staff, particularly its scientific staff, in court litigation to the derogation of their performance of their primary duties. This would result both from the consumption of time in litigation activity and from a concern that their routine duties, decision-making processes and public communications would all have to be vetted with litigation avoidance in mind.
Id. at *6.
Next the court establishes that the Wyeth v. Levine "clear evidence" standard does not require indisputable evidence, but rather defendants must establish impossibility preemption by "clear and convincing evidence." Id. And finally, the court found that preemption is a question of law, not fact and therefore an issue for the court, not the jury. To the extent deciding preemption requires the court to rule on a factual dispute regarding what the FDA would do, "the dispute is one regarding a legislative fact, not an adjudicative fact. Thus it presents a legal question for judicial resolution." Id. at *7.
With that as background, we turn to the specific facts of the case. Risperdal is an anti-psychotic medication. Id. at *1. The Risperdal label that plaintiffs claim is inadequate was modified in 2006 to include language about prolactin elevation and the reported rate of gynecomastia (enlargement of male breasts) among Risperdal users. Id. at *3. Plaintiffs allege that defendants failed to adequately warn of this risk because the labeling did not include the "true" rate of gynecomastia and should have included an instruction to physicians to monitor blood prolactin levels. Id. at *1. Defendants moved for summary judgment on preemption grounds in 5 cases involving plaintiffs from 4 different states. Id.
With respect to the rate of gynecomastia set forth in the label, the FDA specifically approved the pooling of data from 18 studies to arrive at the rate that was used in the labeling. Id. The FDA re-examined the label in 2007-2008 and concluded that it required no labeling changes regarding gynecomastia or prolactin elevations. Id. Plaintiffs argue that the pooled average was lower and that defendants should have disclosed the higher incident rates observed in 2 of the 18 studies. Id. at *8. Because those 2 studies were among those considered by the FDA during the approval process, "the FDA's position is clear [as to] how information regarding the 18 studies should be described in the label." Id. This portion of plaintiffs' claim is therefore preempted.
As to plaintiffs' allegation that defendants failed to adequately warn about monitoring prolactin levels, plaintiffs rely on "Table 21." This is a table containing an analysis of 5 studies purportedly showing a statistically significant association between elevated prolactin levels and gynecomastia. Id. The table was in a draft of a journal article but not in the final publication and therefore not submitted to the FDA during the approval process. The studies reviewed in the table, however, were among those considered by the FDA. Id.
Plaintiffs argued that based on the information in the table, defendants should have independently changed their label under the Changes Being Effected ("CBE") regulations. However, to implement a CBE label change without prior FDA approval, the change must be based on "newly acquired information" which is defined as
data, analyses, or other information not previously submitted to the agency, which may include (but are not limited to) data derived from new clinical studies, reports of adverse events, or new analyses of previously submitted data (e.g., meta-analyses) if the studies, events or analyses reveal risks of a different type or greater severity or frequency than previously included in submissions to FDA.
Id. at *9. Table 21 doesn't fit that definition. It may be a different analysis of the data, but it did not show a different type or greater severity or frequency of the risk of gynecomastia which is the focus of the CBE regulation. To the extent plaintiffs also tried to rely on their litigation experts' analysis of the data, the court point out that that was a tactic tried and rejected in several other litigations as a means of avoiding preemption. Id. So, plaintiffs' claims are also preempted because the data they rely on to suggest defendants could have changed the label is not newly acquired and could not serve as the basis for an independent label change.
Not only could defendants not have changed the label on their own, the court found clear evidence that the FDA also wouldn't have approved it. In 2012, one plaintiffs' counsel submitted a Citizen's Petition to the FDA alleging that the Risperdal label did not adequately address elevated prolactin levels, the need to monitor for elevated prolactin levels, or the rates of gynecomastia. Id. at *4. Essentially the same allegations raised in the litigation. In its response denying the petition, the FDA stated that it was commonly known that Risperdal increases prolactin and that gynecomastia is one of the manifestations of increased prolactin. Id. at *5. Based on that the court concluded:
This Court is persuaded that these reasons articulated by the FDA in response to the very claims alleged here provide the kind of "clear evidence" of "legislative fact" which the U.S. Supreme Court requires before a court can hold that impossibility preemption applies. By any standard, there is "clear evidence" that Plaintiffs' entire theory of label inadequacy focused on prolactin levels was not only considered and rejected by the FDA but also rests on information (and allegations) known to the FDA and the medical community. The FDA's review of the 18 clinical studies—which form the underlying data of any theory that Plaintiffs posit—both pre-approval and in subsequent reviews, and its subsequent inaction, seem to be the definite upshot of a conscious FDA choice on information before the agency. It is not this Court's job to revisit a decision made by the FDA.
Id. at *11.
It may not be the court's job to revisit FDA decisions, but it is certainly this blog's job to visit strong preemption decisions like this one. So, just a reminder that if you get a good decision – forward it along. Don't make us wait 6 months to join the party.
This article is presented for informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice.
