By Mike Scarcella <\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (Reuters) – Teva Pharmaceuticals has asked a U.S. judge to prevent insurer Humana from telling jurors it is an Israeli company at a major drug price-fixing \u200ctrial, arguing that strong public views over the Gaza war could prejudice proceedings and affect \u200cits ability to receive a fair hearing. <\/p>\n
In a filing in a federal court in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Tel Aviv-based Teva said its \u200bnational origins have no bearing on whether it took part in an alleged conspiracy to inflate generic drug prices, the central claim in the litigation. <\/p>\n
Teva, one of Israel’s largest companies, is set to be one of several drug makers to face the first trial in the long-running case. The trial is scheduled to begin on September \u200c15 and end by late October. <\/p>\n
The \u2060filing underscored how far-reaching tensions over the war in Gaza have become in the United States, including potentially complicating a company’s ability to defend itself before randomly selected \u2060jurors. <\/p>\n
Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip, triggered by Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel, has become a divisive issue in U.S. politics. <\/p>\n
“In the period of almost three years since the start of the Gaza War, anything connected \u200bwith Israel \u200bhas been subject to the highest levels of controversy, \u200bwith emotions running high,” Teva said in \u200cits filing. <\/p>\n
In a statement, it said its corporate origin was irrelevant to the case and that “references to a foreign parent company are potentially prejudicial.” Teva’s U.S.-based subsidiary is a defendant in the lawsuit. <\/p>\n
Teva has denied Humana’s allegations that it conspired with other drug makers to keep the prices of some drugs artificially high. The drugs include the muscle relaxant baclofen and blood pressure medication propranolol. <\/p>\n
Louisville, Kentucky-based Humana declined to comment. <\/p>\n
Companies and \u200cother parties in lawsuits routinely ask judges to limit what \u200bjurors can hear during trials, arguing that some evidence could unfairly \u200bsway a jury. <\/p>\n
Teva pointed to a recent \u200bopinion poll that said it found 60% of Americans have a negative view of Israel. \u200cThe drug maker also cited U.S. college \u200bcampus protests over Israel and \u200bacts of violence against individuals and institutions deemed affiliated with the country. <\/p>\n
Humana in a separate filing urged the court to bar the drug company defendants from introducing “inflammatory argument or evidence regarding health \u200binsurance companies generally,” including any evidence \u200cof denied claims. <\/p>\n
Its filing cited the 2024 shooting death of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson. \u200bThe alleged shooter in that case allegedly wrote the word “deny” on a bullet casing. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bMike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario and Howard Goller) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Mike Scarcella WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (Reuters) – Teva Pharmaceuticals has asked a U.S. judge to prevent insurer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[66803,2254,5656,66802,37,41913,66801],"class_list":["post-238742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-drug-makers","tag-gaza-strip","tag-gaza-war","tag-humana","tag-israel","tag-israeli-company","tag-teva-pharmaceuticals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117049593910875416","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}