AFL-CIO Joins Lawsuit Against Nexium Manufacturer

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LOS ANGELES -- The AFL-CIO joined senior citizens groups Monday in suing the makers of the heartburn drug Nexium, alleging that AstraZeneca waged a massive and misleading campaign for the purple pill.

While some of its local chapters and affiliated unions individually had filed similar suits, it was the first time that the national AFL-CIO, representing 13.5 million U.S. workers, has gone to court against a medical company, said Gerry Shea, the union's director of government relations.

Drug prices contribute to soaring health care costs that have become a major contract bargaining issue, with bosses aiming to increase the worker's share of health insurance premiums, Shea said.

"Health care has been the most contentious issue in collective bargaining for the past two years," Shea said. "In every major negotiation, we have either seen cost-shifting of some kind or explicit trade-off of wages."

There was a "hue and cry" among members to deal with the issue, and the AFL-CIO has responded by involving itself in lobbying and in working with reform groups.

"We spend an enormous amount of time on this issue," Shea said. "This (lawsuit) is an attempt to kind of get a new weapon in our arsenal."

The AFL-CIO recently joined the Boston-based Prescription Access Litigation Project, a national nonprofit coalition of about 100 groups that sues over the issue of drug prices.

The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of the AFL-CIO, the Congress of California Seniors, and the California Alliance for Retired Americans. It seeks restitution and unspecified damages.

The suit alleges that London-based AstraZeneca violated California's laws against unfair competition and false advertising. According to the suit, the company made misleading comparison tests between Nexium and its older heartburn drug, Prilosec, in order to convince doctors and patients that it was worth using the far more expensive medication.

The company was trying to shore up profits before its exclusive U.S. patent on Prilosec -- at the time, the world's most prescribed drug -- expired in 2001, when it would face fierce competition from cheaper generic versions, the suit contends.

Ads showed results comparing 20 milligrams of Prilosec to 40 milligrams of Nexium, when comparable dosages would have shown little difference in effectiveness, the suit contends.

"The main innovation was that they put yellow stripes on their purple pill, and charged consumers grossly inflated prices," said Alex Sugerman-Brozan, director of Prescription Access Litigation in a statement.

According to the lawsuit, Nexium now sells for $4.09 per pill while Prilosec costs 46 cents per pill.

The company had not seen the suit and could not respond to its specific allegations but "there are clear differences with Nexium," said Rachel Bloom-Baglin, executive director of corporate communications for AstraZeneca U.S.

"In clinical trials, Nexium has demonstrated better acid control and better healing of acid-related damage. Bottom line is that more patients have better acid control with Nexium than with other medications of its type," she said in a telephone interview from the company's U.S. headquarters in Wilmington, Del.

The comparison was based on previously conducted studies of what dosages of the two drugs provided the best relief, she said.

"This is not an apples-to-apples comparison. It's apples to oranges," she said.

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