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A cancer patient has filed a class action lawsuit against Genentech, a maker of cancer drugs, over claims the pharmaceutical company intentionally packages medication in ways that are wasteful and cost patients more money.
Andrew Williamson of Missouri says he went through three rounds of chemotherapy with Genentech’s Rituxan in 2016 and 2017. During each treatment, the staff at Kansas City Hospital reportedly had to throw away between 20 and 27 grams of the medicine because the single-use vials are only offered in two sizes, both containing more than Williamson’s doctor prescribed. The cost of the unused cancer drugs, which Williamson’s insurance company had to pay for, totaled more than $11,800.
If Genentech added a 40mg vial of Rituxan to the 500mg and 100mg vials it currently offers, the waste would have been reduced significantly – down to about $1,923 worth – Williamson claims.
As a result of the waste, Williamson filed a class action lawsuit against Genentech in California state Superior Court on Aug. 26. Some legal wrangling ensued. Genentech petitioned to have the case transferred to U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, but the federal court refused and sent the case back to state court. Williamson then submitted a revised version of the class action complaint, and his insurance company, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, joined the case as another plaintiff.
On Sept. 24, Genentech again petitioned to have the case moved back to U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. That request is pending the court’s decision.
Williamson and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City claim Genentech’s practices violate California’s unfair competition law. The class action lawsuit specifically takes issue with the company’s single-use vial packaging of Rituxan, which is primarily used to treat Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and related cancers, the colorectal cancer drug Avastin, the breast cancer treatment Kadcyla, and Xolair, an asthma medication. It offers examples of waste due to the limited vial sizes Genentech makes of each.
In the case of Xolair, for instance, the U.S. Food and Drug administration approved Genentech to make single-use vials of 75 mg, which the company sells in Europe, according to the class action lawsuit. In the United States, Genentech only sells 150 mg vials. According to the drug’s labels, Xolair is administered in 150 mg to 375 mg dosages, the class action lawsuit says. Patients getting the 375 mg dosage would end up using three vials and wasting half of the third vial.
In 2018, Genentech began selling 75-mg prefilled syringes, but not 75-mg vials.
Genentech’s insistence on offering few options in single-use vials “needlessly costs patients with cancer and other serious diseases hundreds of millions of dollars a year for costly medicines that cannot be used and instead must be thrown away,” the class action lawsuit says.
Williamson and his attorneys cite a 2016 article published in the BMJ medical journal by Dr. Peter B. Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, about the practice of pharmaceutical companies selling cancer drugs and other expensive medications in single-use vials containing higher dosages “than is appropriate for most patients.”
The study projected that waste among 18 cancer drugs, including three manufactured by Genentech, in 2016 “would total $1.8 billion in revenues received by the pharmaceutical companies, with another $1 billion in markups paid to doctors and hospitals,” the class action lawsuit states. “For three Genentech products alone, the total was more than half a billion dollars … and that is the cost of waste for just one year.”
Even more of a problem, the class action lawsuit said, is that most patients likely don’t know they and their insurance companies are paying for medicine their healthcare providers are literally throwing away.
Have you been treated with single-use vials of cancer drugs? Did you or your insurance company have to pay for medicine you couldn’t use? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
Williamson and the proposed Class Members are represented by Alfredo Torrijos, Mike Arias and Elise R. Sanguinetti of Aria Sanguinetti Wang & Torrijos LLP; Richard S. Cornfeld and Daniel Scott Levy of Law Offices of Richard S. Cornfeld, LLC; John G. Simon and Kevin M. Carnie, Jr. of The Simon Law Firm, P.C.; Brian Wolfman.
The Wasteful Packaging Class Action Lawsuit is Andrew Williamson, et al. v. Genentech, Inc., et al., Case No. 3:20-cv-06695-LB, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Read About More Class Action Lawsuits & Class Action Settlements:
Avastin Blindness May Result from Eye Disease Treatment
Xolair Risks and Safety Closely Examined
FDA Warns of Avastin Eye Infection Risk From Repackaged Avastin Intravitreal Injections
