In high­ly un­usu­al move, Paci­ra sues med­ical jour­nal for li­bel over its non-opi­oid painkiller

A New Jer­sey biotech whose on­ly ap­proved drug is used as a painkiller af­ter surg­eries is su­ing a sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal, its ed­i­tors and a hand­ful of au­thors for li­bel af­ter the pub­li­ca­tion print­ed nu­mer­ous pa­pers and ed­i­to­ri­als that the com­pa­ny says dis­cred­it­ed the drug.

Paci­ra Bio­sciences filed the com­plaint against the Amer­i­can So­ci­ety of Anes­the­si­ol­o­gists in the US Dis­trict Court for New Jer­sey on Wednes­day af­ter­noon. A Feb­ru­ary is­sue of the group’s jour­nal Anes­the­si­ol­o­gy print­ed three ar­ti­cles and oth­er con­tent full of “bias” that “se­ri­ous­ly dis­par­aged” the drug Ex­par­el, Paci­ra claimed.

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