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This post comes solely from the Cozen O’Connor side of the blog.

 

The MDL court in the Testosterone Replacement Therapy (“TRT”) litigation involves more than just individual product liability cases. It includes a class action. In particular, a single named plaintiff, Medical Mutual of Ohio (“MMO”), seeks to represent a class of third-party payers (“TPPs”)—entities such as health benefit plans and HMOs—who will claim to have suffered economic damages when they reimbursed payments for medically inappropriate TRT prescriptions. The prescriptions were medically inappropriate, MMO argues, because they were the result of the class’s reliance on misrepresentations about the safety and efficacy of off-label uses for TRT. MMO wants the putative class to get its money back. And more. It wants treble damages and legal fees under RICO (it also asserts state-law negligent misrepresentation claims).

Now, in a class action, sameness is important. As viewed by plaintiffs’ attorneys, sameness is everything. The more sameness, the better. Differences, on the other hand, are deadly. They kill class actions. Accordingly, when a plaintiff files a motion to certify a class, like MMO did here, the briefing relentlessly focuses on sameness. And the defendants, you can be assured, focus on the differences. And then the court decides.

And in this instance, the Court saw a whole lot of differences. Med. Mut. of Ohio v. Abbvie Inc., 2018 WL 3586182 (N.D. Ill. July 26, 2018).

We’ll start with experts. MMO put up an expert to say that TPPs act the same way with regard to drugs listed on their formularies, in particular that TTPs usually make formulary changes “only once they receive notice” from FDA about safety or efficacy concerns. Id. at 11. If this sounds over-simplified and likely not true, it’s because it is. But MMO had an expert give this opinion because, if it were accepted, MMO could then argue that defendant misled the class by hiding data and risks before the FDA issued any notice. The problem for MMO, however, is that plaintiff’s expert didn’t have the data to support this opinion. He just said it:

But an opinion must be connected to the existing data by more than the ipse dixit of the expert. An expert’s opinions may be inadmissible because there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion offered. That is the case here.

Id.

The court also rejected this expert’s opinion that the defendants interacted with all TTPs in the same way using “the same common promotional strategies.” Id. at *12. Among other deficiencies, the record showed that the expert reached his opinion before beginning his work. He relied on materials selected and gathered by the plaintiff’s attorneys and allegations in MMO’s complaint, not his own investigation. Id.

Plaintiff also put up a causation and damages expert—the well-traveled Dr. Meredith Rosenthal—who performed a regression analysis to show that the defendants’ alleged misrepresentations damaged all TPPs in the same way. The flaw in the analysis, however, was that it purported to measure the effect of the alleged misrepresentations on doctors and patients. In other words, it focused on direct-to-consumer and physician promotion, not promotion to and contact with the TPPs, the would-be class members asking for their money back. Id. at *8-9. This didn’t work. Proximate causation requirements for RICO claims are stringent. Evidence of anything less than a direct causal connection to the plaintiff’s injury fails. The court found Dr. Rosenthal’s opinion to be irrelevant and simply ignored it. Id. at *10.

The court next set its sights on the “adequacy” requirement of a class action, in particular whether MMO itself could be an adequate class representative. Anything that could subject MMO to unique or unusual defenses—differences from other class members—could render MMO an inadequate class representative. The court found two big problems for MMO. First, MMO appeared to react belatedly and ineffectively to a notice that the FDA was investigating the safety of TRT with regard to heart attack, strokes and death. In particular, MMO did not institute a prior authorization requirement for the reimbursement of TRT prescription payments until four years after the notice, and made a number of admitted missteps along the way. Id. at *14. Second, and maybe related, its formulary management practices did not include an annual clinical evaluation of safety and efficacy of the drugs on its formulary. The court found, with the help of testimony from a defense expert, that these practices did not meet industry standards and could subject MMO to unusual defenses. Id. at *15. The Court held “that MMO is an inadequate class representative and on that basis denies MMO’s motion for class certification.” Id.

Not done there, the court also held that the plaintiff did not meet the predominance requirement of a class action, concluding instead that individual issues will predominate over common questions of law or fact. Id. In other words, there wasn’t enough sameness to dominate the individuality. For instance, MMO could not “show that each TPP actually received defendants’ alleged misrepresentations. Id. at *16. The court found that this was an individualized inquiry, varying by TPP:

Namely, defendants highlight evidence demonstrating that whether a TPP receives sales calls and clinical information from defendants depends on the number of beneficiaries the TPP insures; whether the TPP permits or prohibits meetings with drug manufacturers as a matter of policy; whether the TPP prefers to hear only business information, only clinical information, or both; and whether the TPP adopts formularies without modification from a [pharmacy benefit managers].

Id.

The court rejected MMO’s argument that it should infer that all TTPs received the misrepresentations because “defendants spent millions on promotional efforts aimed at TPPs . . . including standardized promotional materials”—a kind of fraud-in-the-air theory. Id. at *17. Finding ample reason to doubt that the promotional materials were standardized, the court reasoned that “one would need to know what particular representations a TPP received in order to assess whether that TPP was exposed to half-truths.” Id. That’s “TPP-by-TPP proof,” the very antithesis of class treatment. Id.

On reliance, the court held that individualized issues would also predominate over common issues, persuaded by defendants’ evidence that the formulary management process was complex, not standardized:

Defendants point to evidence tending to show that TPPs’ formulary and utilization management decisions are complex and individualized. Some TPPs do not meet with drug manufacturers at all and are thus unlikely to rely on information from them. Some TPPs use PBMs but customize the PBMs’ standardized formularies. Other TPPs, including MMO for much of the class period, adopt their PBMs’ formularies without modification but make their own utilization management decisions.

Id. at *18.

In short, the court found a lot of reasons to deny class certification. You can find even more in the court’s opinion, which we recommend for your reading list. It is a template for how to defend against these type of TPP class actions.