Mylan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette settle lawsuits
Feb 18, 2012, 1:29 AM
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Generic-drug company Mylan and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced Friday they have settled two lawsuits stemming from a series of stories that prompted a U.S. Food and Drug Administration review.
The lawsuits were filed by Mylan Inc. in 2009 in the Circuit Court of Monongalia County, W.Va.
One lawsuit said the newspaper omitted and distorted facts in an article that said employees at Mylan’s Morgantown, W.Va., facility regularly overrode computer-generated warnings about potential problems with medication production. The other lawsuit alleged the newspaper misappropriated trade secrets, claiming its articles were based on improperly obtained and misconstrued confidential and proprietary documents.
The Post-Gazette, in court documents, had alleged that Mylan had sued to obtain information on the confidential sources the newspaper used.
The FDA, after an investigation, concluded Mylan did nothing wrong. In the lawsuits, Mylan, which provides products to customers all over the world, sought financial damages, claiming the July 2009 articles led to stock fluctuations and damaged its reputation.
In a joint statement Friday, both parties said the litigation had been resolved to their satisfaction.
“The Post-Gazette did not find and did not intend to report that Mylan had manufactured or distributed any defective drugs,” the statement read. “The Post-Gazette regrets if any reader of the article thought otherwise.”
Named as defendants in Mylan’s lawsuits were the newspaper and two reporters.
The Post-Gazette’s executive editor, David Shribman, said the newspaper “paid no money to Mylan in the course of this legal action” and “did not reveal any confidential sources.”
Mylan is based in Canonsburg, a Pittsburgh suburb. A telephone call to the company after business hours Friday was not immediately returned.
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