Alaska Electrical Pension Fund v. Pharmacia Corp. et al, etc., Nos. 07-4500, 07-4564; Third Circuit; opinion by Barry, U.S.C.J.; decided January 30, 2009. Before Judges Barry, Chagares, and Restani (sitting by designation). On appeal from the District of New Jersey. [Sat below: Judge Thompson.] DDS No. xx-8-xxxx [18 pp.]
In this class action, plaintiffs allege that defendants violated §§ 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by making, with scienter, materially false statements about a clinical study of Celebrex, an anti-inflammatory medication. They allege that when a long-term clinical study of its effect on the gastrointestinal system (the Celecoxib Long-term Arthritis Safety Study (the CLASS study)) did not show that it caused fewer side effects than similar drugs, defendants distorted the results of the study so that it would appear that Celebrex possessed a better GI safety profile than it did. Specifically, they released only the results from the first six months of the CLASS study — results that were capable of positive construction. They then had an article based on the truncated results submitted for publication to the Journal of the American Medical Association , which was not told that the data was incomplete. The article was published.
