Pharmaceutical Drug Litigation Updates

Pfizer Must Pay $45 Million in Prempro Cases, Court Rules

Quoted from http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-04/pfizer-must-pay-45-million-in-prempro-cases-court-rules.html

Pfizer Must Pay $45 Million in Prempro Cases, Court Rules

January 04, 2012, 12:17 PM EST

By Jef Feeley

 

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc. must pay more than $45 million in damages to two women who blamed the company’s menopause drugs for their breast cancers, an appeals court ruled.

Connie Barton and Donna Kendall, two Illinois women who sued Pfizer units Wyeth and Pharmacia & Upjohn over their menopause medications, deserved both compensatory and punitive damages over the companies’ handling of the drugs, a panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled yesterday.

“We are very disappointed with the court’s decisions in these cases and continue to believe there was no basis in fact or law for the jury verdicts,” Chris Loder, a spokesman for New York-based Pfizer, said in an e-mailed statement. Pfizer officials will ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to review the lower court’s findings, he said.

More than 6 million women took Prempro and related menopause drugs to treat symptoms including hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. At one point, Pfizer and its units faced more than 10,000 lawsuits over the medications.

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Pfizer Has Settled About Half of Prempro Cases, Adds to Reserve

Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-15/pfizer-has-settled-about-half-of-prempro-cases-adds-to-reserve.html

Pfizer Has Settled About Half of Prempro Cases, Adds to Reserve

By Jef Feeley - Dec 15, 2011 8:38 AM ET

Pfizer Inc. (PFE), the world’s largest drugmaker, has settled almost half of the lawsuits over its menopause drugs and increased the funds set aside to resolve the cases, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Pfizer and its Wyeth and Pharmacia & Upjohn units have resolved about 46 percent of suits that claimed the companies’ hormone-replacement medicines, including Prempro and Premarin, caused breast cancer, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Pfizer said it added $68 million to the $772 million it already reserved for the cases.

“We have recorded a charge of $260 million in the first nine months of 2011 that provides for the minimum expected costs to resolve all the remaining hormone-replacement actions,” Pfizer officials said in the Nov. 10 filing.

More than 6 million women took Prempro and related menopause drugs to treat symptoms including hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. Wyeth’s sales of the medicines, which are still on the market, exceeded $2 billion before the release of the Women’s Health Initiative study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Until 1995, many menopausal women combined Wyeth’s Premarin, an estrogen-based drug, with progestin-laden Provera, made by Pfizer’s Upjohn unit, to relieve their symptoms. Wyeth combined the two hormones in its Prempro pill. Pfizer, based in New York, acquired Wyeth in 2009.

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Pfizer Loses $72.6 Million Verdict in Breast Cancer Suit

Quoted from http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-06/pfizer-loses-72-6-million-verdict-in-breast-cancer-suit.html

Pfizer Loses $72.6 Million Verdict in Breast Cancer Suit

December 06, 2011, 3:58 PM EST

By Jef Feeley, Chris Yasiejko and Phil Milford

 

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc. must pay $72.6 million in damages to three women who contended they developed breast cancer after taking the company’s menopause drugs, a Philadelphia jury decided.

Jurors in state court deliberated over two days before finding today that hormone-replacement drugs made by Pfizer’s Wyeth and Pharmacia Upjohn units were responsible for cancer in Susan Elfont, Bernadette Kalenkoski and Judy Mulderig. The panel awarded Elfont $20 million; Kalenkoski, $27.85 million; and Mulderig, $24.75 million.

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Drug companies settle with 2 Reno women in breast cancer suit

Quoted from http://www.rgj.com/article/20101220/NEWS/101220019/1321/Drug-companies-settle-with-2-Reno-women-in-breast-cancer-suit

Drug companies settle with 2 Reno women in breast cancer suit

BY MARTHA BELLISLE

December 20, 2010

Two major drug companies have reached a settlement with two women who had filed a lawsuit claiming the hormone replacement drugs the companies made, marketed and sold caused their breast cancer, a judge’s assistant said Monday.

Lawyers for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Upjohn Company, as well as for Nadine Bender and Sheila Scott, called Washoe District Judge Robert Perry’s chambers and notified the court that they had reached an agreement on the case.

The amount of the settlement has not been disclosed.

Lawyers for both sides have declined to discuss the agreement.

“As a matter of company policy, we do not comment on our legal strategy,” said Chris Loder, a spokesman for Pfizer, owner of Wyeth. “We stand by our hormone therapy medications, which remain an important treatment option for many women with debilitating symptoms of menopause, and we will continue to vigorously defend these medicines.”

The case was scheduled to go to trial Jan. 10, about two months after the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed a $58 million jury award to three Northern Nevada women who had made identical claims.

The cases are among thousands filed by women across the country who have made similar claims.

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Pfizer Unit Downplayed Prempro’s Risks, Lawyer Says

Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-16/pfizer-unit-downplayed-prempro-s-risks-lawyer-says-update1-.htm

Pfizer Unit Downplayed Prempro’s Risks, Lawyer Says

By Jef Feeley - Nov 16, 2010 6:55 PM ET

Pfizer Inc.’s Wyeth unit downplayed the risks that its Prempro menopause drug could cause breast cancer, a lawyer for a Virginia woman who developed the disease told jurors.

Executives at Wyeth intentionally ignored researchers’ findings that the company’s hormone-replacement drugs might put women like Georgia Torkie-Tork at risk for the disease, Zoe Littlepage, one of her lawyers, told a federal court jury today in Alexandria, Virginia. The company also included ambiguous references to Prempro’s breast-cancer risks on the drug’s warning label, Littlepage said.

Wyeth’s scientists “never did a breast cancer study” on Prempro even though outside studies repeatedly uncovered “safety signals about the drug,” Littlepage said in opening statements.

More than 6 million women took the menopause drugs to treat symptoms such as hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. Wyeth’s sales of the medicines, which are still on the market, topped $2 billion before the Women’s Health Initiative, a National Institutes of Health-sponsored study, concluded that they posed an increased risk of cancer.

Until 1995, many menopausal women combined Premarin, Wyeth’s estrogen-based drug, with Upjohn’s progestin-laden Provera, to relieve their symptoms. Wyeth later combined the two hormones in its Prempro pill.

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Pfizer Wins Arkansas Lawsuit Claiming Prempro Caused Woman's Breast Cancer

Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-19/pfizer-wins-arkansas-lawsuit-claiming-prempro-caused-woman-s-breast-cancer.html

Prempro Caused Woman's Breast Cancer

By Jef Feeley - Oct 19, 2010 4:56 PM ET

Pfizer Inc. properly warned an Arkansas woman about the cancer risks of its Prempro menopause drug, jurors found in rejecting her bid for at least $3.5 million in damages.

Jurors in federal court in Little Rock, Arkansas deliberated less than an hour before siding with Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker. Margaret Wilson, a 68-year-old former bank teller, claimed that Prempro helped caused her breast cancer and executives of Pfizer’s Wyeth unit hid the medicine’s health risks from women and their doctors.

Wyeth now has won six of the 13 Prempro cases decided by juries since trials began in 2006. Wyeth got some verdicts against it thrown out at the post-trial stage or had awards reduced. Wyeth also has won dismissals of more than 3,000 cases before trial, the company said in a statement.

The jury’s decision “affirms that Wyeth communicated the risks and benefits of Prempro,” Chris Loder, a Pfizer spokesman, said in the statement.

Until 1995, many menopausal women combined Premarin, Wyeth’s estrogen-based drug, with progestin-laden Provera, made by Pfizer’s Pharmacia & Upjohn unit, to relieve symptoms such as hot flashes and mood swings. Wyeth combined the two hormones in its Prempro pill.

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Pfizer Rejected by U.S. Supreme Court on Lawsuit Related to Menopause Drug

Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-12/pfizer-rejected-by-u-s-supreme-court-on-menopause-drug-suit.html

Pfizer Rejected by U.S. Supreme Court on Lawsuit Related to Menopause Drug

By Greg Stohr - Oct 12, 2010 10:04 AM ET

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Pfizer Inc. and other makers of hormone replacement treatments, leaving intact a ruling that lets 123 women who developed breast cancer sue in Minnesota state court.

The appeal sought to reinstate a federal trial court ruling that dismissed 116 of the plaintiffs because their claims duplicated previously filed suits.

The issue in the Supreme Court appeal turned on the complex rules governing efforts by corporate defendants to move suits out of plaintiff-friendly state courts and into federal tribunals.

In the Pfizer case, a federal appeals court said the trial judge shouldn’t have dismissed the 116 plaintiffs and instead should have immediately sent the entire matter back to Minnesota state court, where the suits were filed.

More than 6 million women took menopause drugs made by Pfizer’s Wyeth unit to treat symptoms including hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer.

The other companies being sued include units of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Mead Johnson Nutrition Co., Novartis AG, Abbott Laboratories and Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The case is Wyeth v. Kirkland, 10-222.

Pfizer Unit Hid Prempro’s Health Risks, Lawyer Says

Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-04/pfizer-s-wyeth-unit-hid-prempro-s-breast-cancer-risks-lawyer-tells-jurors.html

Pfizer Unit Hid Prempro’s Health Risks, Lawyer Says

By David Voreacos and Sonny Rhodes - Oct 4, 2010 8:36 PM ET

A Pfizer Inc. unit failed to properly warn doctors and consumers that its Prempro menopause drug could cause breast cancer, a lawyer for an Arkansas woman who developed the disease told jurors.

Officials of Pfizer’s Wyeth subsidiary knew women like Margaret Wilson were at risk for the disease by taking the hormone-replacement drug and kept quiet to pump up sales, Chris Kirchmer, a lawyer for Wilson, told a federal court jury in Little Rock, Arkansas.

After studies showed the risks of Prempro, “they never once changed their warnings,” Kirchmer said today in opening statements in the trial of Wilson’s lawsuit over the drug. “The evidence will show you that they did not act responsibly.”

More than 6 million women took the menopause drugs to treat symptoms such as hot flashes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted their links to cancer. Wyeth’s sales of the medicines, which are still on the market, topped $2 billion before the Women’s Health Initiative, a National Institutes of Health-sponsored study, concluded they posed an increased risk of cancer.

Until 1995, many menopausal women combined Premarin, Wyeth’s estrogen-based drug, with Upjohn’s progestin-laden Provera, to relieve their symptoms. Wyeth later combined the two hormones in its Prempro pill.

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Discovery Rule Exception in Hormone Replacement Cases Ruled a Jury Question

Quoted from http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202471427352

Discovery Rule Exception in Hormone Replacement Cases Ruled a Jury Question

Amaris Elliott-Engel

The Legal Intelligencer

September 01, 2010

 

In a decision that restores 1,000 hormone replacement therapy mass tort cases to the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court's caseload, the state Superior Court said it is a question of fact, not a question of law, whether the plaintiffs could have known at the time of their diagnoses with breast cancer that the alleged cause of their cancer was their HRT prescriptions.

The manufacturers of HRT drugs argued that the plaintiffs' two-year statute of limitations ran from the day they were diagnosed with breast cancer, while the plaintiffs argued that an alleged link between HRT drugs and breast cancer was not known prior to the release of the Women's Health Initiative study on July 9, 2002. The study received wide-ranging notoriety because the study was discontinued out of the concern that the study participants taking HRT were showing a higher rate of breast cancer than the control group, among other reasons.

The three-judge Superior Court panel agreed with the plaintiffs, finding that the discovery rule may have tolled their statute of limitations until the release of the WHI study. The court said it is jurors, not judges, who must decide if the plaintiffs made reasonable efforts to discover that the alleged cause of their breast cancer may have stemmed from third-party drugmakers.

"Knowledge of an injury alone is not sufficient to trigger such inquiry," Judge Mary Jane Bowes wrote for the court in Coleman v. Wyeth. "One must have some reason to suspect that the injury was caused by a third party to impose a duty to investigate further. Where the injury is one that may result from non-tortious conduct, such as a disease, that point may be difficult without resolving factual issues." One appellate lawyer said the court's decision in Coleman could have an impact on other mass tort cases beyond HRT cases.

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Philadelphia jury clears Prempro in two breast-cancer cases

Quoted from http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/business_breaking/20100818_Philadelphia_jury_clears_Prempro_in_two_breast-cancer_cases.html

Philadelphia jury clears Prempro in two breast-cancer cases

By Linda Loyd

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury said Wednesday that two women's breast cancers were not linked to Wyeth's menopause drug, Prempro.

After less than four hours of deliberation, the jury rejected claims by Sharon Buxley, 66, a Tennessee resident formerly of Allentown, and Joy Henry, 75, of Harrisburg, that the hormone-replacement therapy helped cause their cancers.

The jury found that Prempro was "not a factual cause" in the development of the breast cancer.

 

The plaintiffs argued during the four-week trial before Common Pleas Court Judge James Murray Lynn that Pfizer Inc.'s Wyeth subsidiary knew the treatment could promote the growth of cancer and should be held legally liable.

Pfizer attorney Beth Wilkinson spoke to jurors afterward. "They clearly understood the science. They had a very good grasp of the issues." She said medical experts who are practicing physicians told the jury "they didn't believe there was evidence that Prempro caused breast cancer in these women."

In 2002, a National Institutes of Health-sponsored study concluded the menopause drug posed an increased cancer risk. Millions of women have taken hormone-replacement drugs.

Plaintiffs attorney Zoe Littlepage vehemently disagrees with Wyeth's claims of success in the long-swirling litigation.

"There have been 15 trials; plaintiffs won 11 of them," she said. "Fifteen juries have deliberated, and 11 of those juries have said the women win. In almost all the verdicts, the judge reduced the putative damage amounts because the numbers have been so high."

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