Quoted from http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-05/bayer-judge-postpones-first-yaz-trial-to-have-cases-mediated.html
Bayer Judge Postpones First Yaz Trial to Have Cases Mediated
January 05, 2012, 11:26 AM EST
By Jef Feeley and Naomi Kresge
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Bayer AG, Germany’s largest drugmaker, won’t face the first trial next week over claims its birth-control pills caused blood clots after a judge appointed a mediator in hopes of settling the cases.
U.S. District Judge David Herndon in Illinois last week postponed the Jan. 9 trial of a lawsuit accusing Bayer and some of its units of misleading women about the health risks of its Yasmin family of birth-control pills. The case was the first of more than 10,000 suits over injuries allegedly caused by the drugs, which include the Yaz contraceptive.
Instead, Herndon ordered Bayer and lawyers for women suing the company to meet with mediator Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor, to explore the possibility of “settlements in this litigation,” the judge said in a Dec. 31 order.
Bayer’s contraceptives generated $1.58 billion in sales in 2010, making them the company’s biggest-selling drugs after Betaseron, a multiple sclerosis medication. The contraceptives, which contain the hormone drospirenone, have been the focus of regulators who question their safety.
