By Caity Coyne,, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — After a settlement was reached between West Virginia and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Monday morning, the remaining parties in the state’s ongoing opioid trial kicked off week three with continued testimony from Dr. Andrew Kolodny.
Kolodny, medical director of Opioid Policy Research at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, was called by the state as an expert witness in the case last Thursday.
Mimi Liu, counsel for the state, picked up her questioning Monday as she argued — using Kolodny’s testimony — that Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and a group of companies that are part of Allergan Finance LLC collaborated to change prescriptive guidelines for opioids throughout the country in the 1990s and early 2000s. Those changes were effective, Kolodny testified, and led to a sharp increase in prescription opioids for myriad conditions throughout that time…
