A Class Action Suits Moves RICO from Mobsters to Medicine

RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, may have been created to tackle mobsters, but today it is at the center of a landmark class action against two of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies over the diabetes drug Actos. Attorney Harrison James of Wissner Baum discusses Painters and Allied Trades District Council 82 Health Care Fund v. Takeda, a national civil RICO class action alleging that Takeda and Eli Lilly engaged in a coordinated, years-long scheme to downplay known bladder cancer risks, misleading regulators, physicians, and third-party payers who reimbursed billions of dollars for the drug. James discusses how RICO’s concepts apply in the pharmaceutical context, what it took to get a civil RICO class certified where others have failed, and the broader implication the case may have for the pharmaceutical industry.