Digital Health & Technology

  • July 06, 2023

    Cooley Life Sciences Pro Jumps To Arnold & Porter In LA

    Arnold & Porter is growing its West Coast team, announcing Thursday it is bringing in a Cooley LLP health care and life sciences expert as a partner in its Los Angeles office.

  • July 05, 2023

    Real Estate Co. Failed To Protect Health Data, Patient Says

    A woman seeking class certification in Pennsylvania federal court accused a real estate company of jeopardizing her personal information after thieves stole a trove of data during a weeklong ransomware event in March.

  • July 05, 2023

    Health Care Marketing Co. Sues In Del. To Unwind $80M Buy

    Life sciences marketing agency Relevate has filed suit in Delaware's Chancery Court to unwind an alleged "fraudulent" purchase of digital health care marketing company Axon last year and get an $80.1 million refund.

  • July 03, 2023

    Tax Claim Shows Injury In Pharmacy Breach, 1st Circ. Says

    A fraudulent tax return containing patient information allegedly stolen from a pharmacy is injury enough to sustain claims in a data breach proposed class action against a home delivery pharmacy service, the First Circuit said Friday.

  • June 30, 2023

    5 ERISA Cases To Watch In 2023's Second Half

    A pending rehearing petition in a massive suit against United Behavioral Health at the Ninth Circuit and battles over ESG in retirement plan investments headline the crop of cases that benefits lawyers will be following in the second half of 2023. Here, Law360 speaks with attorneys about five Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases to keep an eye on.

  • June 29, 2023

    Ex-Alexion VP, Police Chief Charged In Insider-Trading Sweep

    A former Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. executive, his police chief buddy and two doctors were arrested Thursday for alleged insider trading on Alexion's $1.4 billion purchase of another biotech firm in 2020, part of a larger fraud crackdown by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office.

  • June 27, 2023

    Health Care Consulting Co. Dodges Data Breach Suit For Now

    A former NHS Management LLC worker must amend her proposed class action over a 2021 data breach at the health care consulting firm to show that citizens of other states were impacted by the incident if she wants to move forward with her claims, an Alabama federal judge has ruled. 

  • June 26, 2023

    Hospitals' Nude Photo Leak Suit Returned To Pa. State Court

    A proposed class action accusing the Lehigh Valley Health Network of allowing ransomware hackers to swipe patient data — including nude photos used in the treatment of cancer patients — was sent back to state court Monday, after Lehigh Valley admitted that most of the potential class members lived in Pennsylvania.

  • June 26, 2023

    VA Nurses' Overtime Claims Slashed Due to Policy Shift

    The Court of Federal Claims severely restricted the amount of damages a group of 1,300 nurses for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs could win if they successfully prove the agency denied them overtime wages, limiting the damages to claims prior to August 2017.

  • June 22, 2023

    How Dobbs Has Changed The Data Privacy Landscape

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court scuttled abortion protections in its Dobbs decision a year ago, federal and state policymakers have turned up the heat on companies to put tighter restrictions on the collection and disclosure of personal health and location data, although the growing popularity of technologies that are fueled by mass data sets stands to threaten these efforts. 

  • June 20, 2023

    Epstein Becker Grows Health Care Practice In Dallas, Memphis

    Epstein Becker Green has hired a trio of former Butler Snow LLP attorneys, including the firm's former intellectual property practice head as health care and life sciences members in its Memphis, Tennessee, and Dallas offices.

  • June 20, 2023

    AI-Focused Spinal Imaging Co. Hits Ch. 11 After Layoffs

    Troubled AI spinal imaging and treatment company Surgalign has filed for Chapter 11 protection in Texas bankruptcy court, with plans to sell its medical hardware business to biotechnology company Xtnant.

  • June 16, 2023

    Ascension Health Hit With Biometric Privacy Claims In Illinois

    Ascension, one of the largest private health care systems in the United States, was sued in Illinois state court Thursday by a proposed class of employees of a Chicago hospital who claim it violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by requiring them to scan their fingerprints for a medicine dispensing system without first securing their informed written consent.

  • June 16, 2023

    Medical Device Co. Escapes Ex-Worker's ERISA Suit

    An Indiana federal judge nixed a former medical device company employee's proposed class action alleging it allowed its retirement plan's record-keeper to saddle plan participants with excessive fees, ruling Friday that he failed to put forward enough information to keep his claims afloat.

  • June 16, 2023

    Immunomedics Attys Win $12M Fee In $40M Data Scandal Deal

    Attorneys who represented a proposed class of investors in pharmaceutical company Immunomedics Inc. will receive nearly $12 million as their fee.

  • June 15, 2023

    Florida Dental Provider Faces Lawsuits Over Data Breach

    Patients of a Florida-based dental insurance provider brought a proposed class action lawsuit alleging negligence over a ransomware data breach that leaked the private information of more than 8.9 million people on the dark web, saying they face a lifetime risk of having their identities stolen.

  • June 09, 2023

    Reed Smith Adds 2 Attorneys With HHS Background

    Reed Smith LLP has brought on two seasoned health care attorneys from Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP with experience at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General, the firm confirmed to Law360 on Friday.

  • June 08, 2023

    FTC's Health Privacy Efforts Raise Specter Of Litigation

    The Federal Trade Commission is moving to step up its already aggressive policing of how health apps use and share sensitive personal information, but unresolved questions over the scope of the agency's authority is likely to spark challenges that could sharply curtail these efforts.

  • June 08, 2023

    Harvard Health Plan Faces Class Action In Hack Affecting 2.5M

    A Massachusetts-based health care provider and insurer skimped on data security, then sat on information about a data breach affecting more than 2.5 million patients and providers for nearly two months, a proposed class action filed Wednesday alleges.

  • June 05, 2023

    Broker Seeks Early Win In Coverage Row With Health Network

    A health care network's breach of contract and negligence suit against its former insurance broker should be dropped, the broker told a North Carolina federal court, asserting that the claims are premature since the underlying insurance dispute and putative data breach class action remain pending.

  • June 02, 2023

    Judge Calls Apple's Conduct In Smartwatch Row 'Careless'

    A federal judge in California on Friday ripped Apple's failure to preserve emails from a former top executive in its health division as "irresponsible and careless, and perhaps even grossly negligent," a day after a Silicon Valley medical device startup tried to draw the attention of a federal appeals court to alleged misconduct at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

  • May 31, 2023

    Gov't Contracts Of The Month: Moon Landing And VA Records

    Law360 highlights significant contracts from May 2023, including long-pending and over-budget projects such as NASA's purchase of Blue Origin's $3.4 billion lunar lander and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' renewal of a troubled $10 billion record systems project.

  • May 30, 2023

    Data Of Nearly 9 Million People Swiped In Dental Insurer Hack

    Nearly nine million people's personal medical data and Social Security numbers were stolen in a cyberattack earlier this year on one of the largest dental insurers in the U.S., new filings with state regulators show.

  • May 24, 2023

    On Deck In JPML: FTX, Cheer Abuse, T-Mobile

    The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Thursday will consider whether to centralize sprawling fallout from the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, as well as claims of hearing loss from the drug Tepezza and allegedly exploding solar panel systems.

  • May 23, 2023

    Nurse Targets Chicago Hospitals Over Biometric Cabinets

    A Chicago health system and two of its hospitals have been hit with biometric privacy claims by a nurse who says she and others were unlawfully required to scan their fingerprints to access a medicine cabinet without first providing informed consent.

Expert Analysis

  • Where Data Privacy And CFPB Are Headed Under Biden

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    Data privacy is likely to be a key area of legislative and enforcement focus for President-elect Joe Biden, and consumer financial protection is expected to be an immediate priority due to the economic impact of the pandemic, with the most drastic shift likely to occur at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.

  • Ethics Considerations For Law Firms Implementing AI

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    Richard Finkelman and Yihua Astle at Berkeley Research Group discuss the ethical and bias concerns law firms must address when implementing artificial intelligence-powered applications for recruiting, conflict identification and client counseling.

  • The Legal Implications Of Mobile Health Advancements

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    With the pandemic rapidly accelerating the timeline for the shift to remote and mobile health care, providers will need to keep a close eye on new privacy and cybersecurity risks, and on new potential to collect real-time information from patients, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

  • The Post-Election State AG Enforcement Landscape

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    Election results so far have kept the number of Republican and Democratic state attorneys general even, and no matter the outcome of the presidential race, AGs will work across the aisle on important issues like health care, competition and the environment, says former Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan at Kirkland.

  • What A Trump Or Biden Win Will Mean For State AGs

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    The outcome of the presidential election will have significant consequences on cooperation between federal agencies and state attorneys general, but either way robust multistate investigations — especially in the consumer protection space — will continue, says Sean Riley at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Outside Whistleblowers Are Critical To Exposing Fraud

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    Outsiders like industry experts, competitors, public interest organizations and concerned citizens often have deep knowledge, industry data and financial incentives that put them in a better position than insiders to spot fraud, say attorneys at Youman & Caputo, Fox Rothschild, Goldstein & Russell and Herrera Purdy.

  • Comparing Recent State Data Breach Law Updates

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    Public and private entities should revisit their incident response plans to ensure compliance with and understand the differences among heightened data breach notification requirements that five states and Washington, D.C., added or amended this year, says Jane Petoskey at Polsinelli.

  • Best Practices For Health Care Mergers In The COVID-19 Era

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    Health providers considering consolidation as a result of the pandemic's impact should attempt to mitigate antitrust enforcers' concerns by substantiating a merger with evidence of cost and quality efficiencies and making efforts to seek competition-friendly alternatives, say attorneys at Shook Hardy.

  • Assessing Health Data Privacy Damages During A Pandemic

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    Class action litigation related to data privacy in the health care industry is expected to trend upward during the COVID-19 era due to increased reliance on telehealth and contact tracing initiatives, heightening the importance of understanding the different economic approaches and challenges to valuing damages, say analysts at Cornerstone Research.

  • HHS Lab Test Rule's Likely Impact During And After COVID-19

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    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' recent announcement rescinding the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's premarket review requirement for laboratory-developed tests upends regulatory expectations for the clinical laboratory industry and raises questions regarding implementation during the pandemic and beyond, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Compliance Lessons From $1M HHS Fine For Data Breach

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    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently fined Lifespan Health over $1 million for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act breaches, showing that health care companies should take protective compliance measures, such as encrypting devices and utilizing business associate agreements, say attorneys at Spencer Fane.

  • Analyzing Upward And Downward Trends In Legal Tech

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    Advances in legal technology are often accompanied by bombastic overstatements, but it is important to separate the wheat from the chaff by looking at where various technologies stand on the hype curve, says Lance Eliot at Stanford Law School.

  • Telehealth Providers Should Beware ADA Litigation

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    Health providers making the transition to remote care should furnish communication aid and necessary accommodation for individuals with disabilities, or else plaintiffs may assert claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, say Frank Morris and Shira Blank at Epstein Becker.