Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-29/roche-ordered-to-pay-18-million-to-former-accutane-users.html
Roche Ordered to Pay $18 Million to Former Accutane Users
By Jef Feeley - Jun 29, 2012 5:43 PM ET
Roche Holding AG (ROG) must pay a total of $18 million in damages to two former users of its Accutane acne drug who blamed the medicine for their bowel disease, a New Jersey jury ruled.
Jurors in state court in Atlantic City deliberated about six hours today before that finding officials of Basel, Switzerland-based Roche failed to properly warn Kathleen Rossitto and Riley
Wilkinson that Accutane could cause inflammatory bowel disease. Rossitto and Wilkinson were each awarded $9 million in compensatory damages. At the same time, the panel rejected claims by two other former users of the drug.We are pleased that the jury found on behalf of Kathleen Rossitto and Riley Wilkinson and provided a measure of justice for the horrible injuries inflicted upon them by Roche’s drug,” David Buchanan, a New Jersey-based lawyer for the two plaintiffs, said in a telephone interview.
About 16 million people have taken Accutane, once Roche’s second-biggest selling drug, since it went on the market in 1982, according to plaintiffs’ lawyers. Roche, the world’s biggest maker of cancer drugs, pulled its brand-name version of Accutane off the market in 2009 after juries awarded millions of dollars in damages over bowel-disease claims.
Roche officials said they were pleased the jurors rejected claims by Rebecca Reynolds and Jason Young that Roche was responsible for their injuries. The company will appeal the awards to Rossitto and Wilkinson, they said.
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