Pacira’s Libel Suit Against Pain Drug Critics Fails on Appeal

A district court correctly dismissed Pacira Biosciences’s trade libel lawsuit against the publisher and authors of scientific articles that concluded its non-opioid pain medication Exparel wasn’t superior to other drugs on the market, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

“The statements here expressly claim they are tentative scientific conclusions,” Judge Patty Shwartz, writing for a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, said in an opinion.

The case stems from three articles that ran in 2021 in a scientific journal published by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. The authors ...