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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Pharma Firm Accused of Lying About New Drug

(CN) — Shareholders claim Eagle Pharmaceuticals misled investors into believing that its blood-thinner drug Kangio would win government approval, causing its shares to fall 18 percent when the truth came out.

Blake Bauer is a shareholder of Eagle Pharmaceuticals, a company specializing in injectable medications.

Last year, Eagle submitted a new drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its drug Kangio, a blood-thinning medication intended to prevent blood clots in patients undergoing heart surgery.

With the same active ingredient as the drug Angiomax, Kangio would have been one of the first generics on the market to benefit from Angiomax's loss of exclusivity rights in 2014.

In the following months, Eagle repeatedly stated that it had every expectation that the FDA would approve Kangio for public sale, and was preparing to ship early in the second quarter.

But instead of an approval letter, Eagle received a response in March withholding approval pending "further characterization of bivalirudin-related substances in the drug product."

Eagle's share price fell about 18 percent from $53.68 to $43.50 on the news. It has since bounced back somewhat, trading at $48.23 on Wednesday afternoon.

In 2015, Eagle shares performed extremely well, and the company was placed second on GEN Magazine's list of top 10 Wall Street winners of 2015.

Bauer says Eagle and CEO Scott Tarriff should be held liable for "participat[ing] in a continuous course of conduct to conceal adverse material information about the business and future prospects of Eagle Pharmaceuticals."

"Defendants had actual knowledge of the misrepresentations and omissions of material facts set forth herein, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth in that they failed to ascertain and to disclose such facts, even though such facts were available to them," according to a class-action lawsuit Bauer filed Tuesday.

Bauer is represented by Thomas W. Elrod with Kirby McInerney in New York.

Eagle Pharmaceuticals did not immediately return a request for comment.

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