Healthcare

The current owners of vitamin giant Nature’s Care have lost a bid to extend an urgent injunction against the company’s founding family amid fears they were trying to regain control of the corporate group, with a judge finding the family may faced oppressive conduct themselves.

A nose job patient who allegedly defamed his surgeon has been slugged with $50,000 in security for his appeal, on top of a $50,000 damages bill that a judge said the surgeon is unlikely to see.

South Korean biosimilars company Samsung Bioepis has sued Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Biotech to invalidate two patents for Crohn’s disease drug Stelara, after reaching a licencing agreement over the medicine in the US.

Health law practitioners are grappling with “snowballing awards” in claims over psychiatric injuries, according to Sparke Helmore’s new health law partner. 

A Melbourne orthopaedic clinic has lost its bid to register the name ‘Melbourne Bone and Joint Clinic’ as a trade mark, with a judge finding the phrase was just an ordinary combination of words. 

A judge has signed off on a 27.5 per cent group costs order in a consolidated shareholder class action against Medibank over a cyberattack that affected 10 million customers, noting the “significant risk” taken on by the two plaintiff law firms running the action. 

A judge has signed off on a bill that brings the total settlement administration costs in a class action against Johnson & Johnson unit De Puy to over $13 million, amid a push by some judges to open the settlement administration gig up to competition.

Still in the dark about insurance coverage and seeking to stem the flow of cash, two class actions against Heritage Care and St Basil’s over COVID-19 outbreaks have been shelved pending the outcome of criminal cases against the Victorian aged care providers, in a decision the judge said “wouldn’t gladden the hearts of group members”. 

Aged care provider Anglicare has hit back at a class action filed on behalf of 25 people whose loved ones died during a COVID-19 outbreak at the Newmarch House in Sydney, saying it owed no duty of care to prevent mental harm to its residents’ family members.

A Sanofi unit has lost its bid for more time to file a divisional application in relation to a hemophilia treatment, with an IP Australia delegate finding that a US lawyer’s mistaken belief about Australian patent law did not explain the company’s failure to make the application in time.