The Carollton, Texas-based multi-level marketer of nutritional and skin-care products must pay $1.9 million to former distributors under a Dallas County court jury verdict finding AdvoCare violated Texas deceptive trade practices law. Dallas law firm Kilgore & Kilgore, counsel for plaintiffs Bruce and Teresa Badgett, said Aug. 26 that AdvoCare refused to change its marketing and business structures to "meet the accountability demands of" the Badgetts and then cancelled their distribution agreements. A spokeswoman said the Badgetts were terminated appropriately and AdvoCare intends to appeal the decision. Separately, the firm and competitive swimmer Jessica Hardy filed suit against each other after Hardy failed a performance-enhancing drug test and blamed an AdvoCare supplement (1"The Tan Sheet" Feb. 23, 2009)

Public Company Edition: Four health care special purpose acquisition vehicles went public and two others announced mergers, but only one biopharma firm priced an IPO during the week of 19-23 October. Replimune’s $250m offering led recent FOPOs.

Wholesalers are given three more years to set up electronic systems to verify saleable returns under another reprieve from the FDA. Yet the reprieve does not extend to manufacturers, who must respond within 24 hours to wholesalers’ requests to manually verify that a returned product is not suspect.