Saturday, June 25th, 2011
June 25 (Bloomberg) — Merck & Co. lost the second trial to reach a verdict over claims its osteoporosis drug Fosamax causes so-called jaw death. The jury set damages at $8 million.
A jury in New York ruled against Merck today in the case of Shirley Boles, 72, of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, awarding $3 million more than the $5 million her lawyers had asked for. Boles claimed she developed osteonecrosis of the jaw, or ONJ, from taking Fosamax. The first Fosamax case resulted in a Merck victory in May.
Boles “took on a giant and won,” said Timothy O’Brien, one of her lawyers.
U.S. District Judge John Keenan, who is overseeing federal Fosamax litigation, scheduled three so-called bellwether trials that may point the way to out-of-court settlements and show each side the other’s strategy. The third case is to be tried in November.
“We believe the jury verdict was a result of plaintiff’s counsel’s inflammatory and prejudicial remarks,” Paul F. Strain, a lawyer for Merck, said in a statement.
Merck unsuccessfully moved for a mistrial, claiming another lawyer for Boles, Gary Douglas, improperly used his closing statement to encourage the seven-person jury to punish Merck with its verdict.
‘Outrageous Summation’
“I have never heard a more outrageous summation in my life than the one I heard yesterday,” Keenan, 80, told lawyers today outside the jury’s presence.
Strain said in a phone interview that the jury’s findings and the amount awarded aren’t consistent with the evidence introduced in the trial. Merck will ask Keenan to throw out the verdict and, if necessary, will appeal, he said.
Boles was the plaintiff in the first to go to trial, beginning last August. On Sept. 11, Keenan declared a mistrial after the jury said it couldn’t reach a verdict.
In May, Merck won the first Fosamax case to reach a verdict when the jury ruled that Louise Maley of Muncie, Indiana, didn’t have ONJ.
Fosamax plaintiffs claim Merck misrepresented the drug’s safety and failed to warn doctors and patients that it might hamper blood flow to the jaw, causing jawbone-tissue death.
Fosamax, available in pill or liquid form, is part of a group of medicines known as bisphosphonates.
Jury Findings
Jurors today found that Fosamax is defectively designed and unreasonably dangerous and that the drug was negligently designed, according to O’Brien.
Boles’s second trial began June 7 with jury selection. She is a retired deputy from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office whose doctor prescribed Fosamax because of a stress fracture in her foot, she testified. She eventually developed problems in her mouth and then ONJ, she said.
Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, as of Dec. 31 faced about 978 Fosamax cases, including suits with multiple patients, the company said in a March 30 regulatory filing. About 771 lawsuits have been consolidated before Keenan for evidence gathering.
The company had Fosamax sales of $1.1 billion in 2009, compared with $1.55 billion in 2008, the first year the drug faced U.S. generic competition. Sales in 2007 were $3.05 billion.
As of Dec. 31, Merck had reserved $38 million for defending the litigation, according to the regulatory filing. It hasn’t earmarked any money for damages.
Merck rose 32 cents to $35.93 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 4:15 p.m.
The case is Boles v. Merck & Co., 06-cv-09455, and the lawsuits are combined in In Re Fosamax Products Liability Litigation, MDL 1789, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
Tags: Fosamax, Fosamax Case, Fosamax Lawyer, Fosamax Legal, Fosamax Products Liability Litigation
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Saturday, June 25th, 2011
Opening statements were heard today in the first state court Fosamax products liability trial, Rosenberg v. Merck.
For plaintiff Allison Rosenberg, Paul Sizemore, the First Chair member of the Rosenberg Trial Team told the jury, “We’re here because Fosamax caused harm to my client’s jaw…Jaw death and what we call osteonecrosis of the jaw doesn’t just happen…it was caused by Fosamax.”
According to Mr. Sizemore, Ms. Rosenberg’s health care providers were not warned that Fosamax could cause bone death, even though the FDA had sent warning letters to Merck. Nor were her physicians told that Fosamax’s effectiveness declined after three years; instead, said Mr. Sizemore, Merck successfully fought to delay and minimize any warning.
Mr. Sizemore predicted that Merck would claim that osteoporosis was “the worst disease in the world,” but noted that Ms. Rosenberg never suffered any fracture. Instead, her jaw died, and none of the other medications Ms. Rosenberg was taking, such as steroids, cause your jaw to die, said Mr. Sizemore — only Fosamax does that.
For Merck, Butler Snow’s Christy Jones told the jury that although Ms. Rosenberg believed that Fosamax had caused harm to her jaw, extensive studies showed Fosamax to be safe and effective. In addition, current scientific evidence does not show that Fosamax causes osteonecrosis of the jaw. Moreover, Merck timely warned doctors of the possible risk of osteonecrosis. Finally, said Ms. Jones, Fosamax did not cause Ms. Rosenberg to suffer osteonecrosis of the jaw. Instead, the harm to Ms. Rosenberg’s jaw possibly resulted from steroid use.
Tags: allsion rosenberg, Butler Snow, Fosamax, Fosamax Case, Fosamax Lawyer, Fosamax Legal, Merck, osteonecrosis of the jaw, paul sizemore, rosenberg
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Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
At the American Association for Justice’s winter convention beginning Friday, Feb. 4, at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel, Meryl Viener of The Sanders Firm will present on the legal cases being brought against Merck for Fosamax.
Fosomax has been shown to actually cause the complete opposite effect than what it was designed for in some cases, actually causing osteonecrosis of the jaw “dead jaw”, a condition where the jaw essentially rots away. The FDA concluded that labels accompanying bisphosphonates should warn patients of the risk of osteonecrosis.
Tags: Fosamax, Fosamax Case, Fosamax Lawyer, Fosamax Legal, Merck, Meryl Viener, Viener
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Thursday, December 30th, 2010
Mineola, N.Y. (Lexis Nexis/PRWEB ) August 5, 2008 – Marc Grossman, senior partner of leading national personal injury law firm Sanders Viener Grossman LLP, today announced that he has filed five separate product liability lawsuits against Pfizer, Inc., manufacturer of the hugely popular Chantix smoking cessation drug.
The lawsuits (Cases 110517/08, 110518/08, 110519/08, 110520/08 and 110561/08) were filed in the Supreme Court of New York, New York County, and claim that each of the plaintiffs either committed or attempted suicide while suffering from neuropsychiatric side effects that resulted from taking Chantix.
Chantix has been prescribed to more than 6 million people worldwide since its launch in August 2006 and has been approved for use in more than 70 countries as a drug to assist adults who want to quit smoking. However, recent studies have shown that Chantix may cause serious adverse side effects, such as suicidal thoughts and erratic behavior.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an alert “to highlight important revisions to the warnings and precautions sections of the prescribing information for Chantix regarding serious neuropsychiatric symptoms.”
“We’ve been investigating claims regarding Chantix ever since the FDA’s initial communications about reported side effects, so our firm was well-prepared to vigorously represent our clients when we were contacted by their families,” said Grossman. “For those familiar with this year’s Tony Award-winning play, ‘August: Osage County,’ which has sparked debate about the risks of suicide and dysfunction stemming from prescription drug use, the fact that we are filing these actions on the eve of August 1st is a tragic illustration of life imitating art.”
The filing of the Chantix lawsuits continues an extremely active year for Sanders Viener Grossman, in which the firm has secured a series of large settlements on behalf of its clients. The firm recently recovered large settlements for approximately 300 plaintiffs involved in the Vioxx-related litigation with Merck & Co. Last month, Sanders Viener Grossman recovered $8 million in damages for its clients over a span of just eight days, including a $5 million recovery in a product liability case.
According to Grossman, the firm has extensive experience with defective drug litigation and can provide Chantix victims with free consultations and case reviews to make sure their legal rights are protected.
For more information about Sanders Viener Grossman LLP, please visit www.thesandersfirm.com or call 1.800.FAIRPLAY.
Author Information
Marc Grossman
Sanders Viener Grossman LLP
Tags: 1-800-fairplay, chantix, chantix lawsuit, chantix lawyer, pfizer, pfizer lawsuit, pfizer lawyer, Sanders Viener Grossman, sandersfirm, thesandersfirm
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Thursday, January 14th, 2010
The following news article came trough Reuters today (Jan 14th, 2010):
Suits allege harm from Pfizer quit-smoking drug
NEW YORK, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Three personal injury lawsuits were filed against Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) on Thursday, claiming its smoking-cessation drug Chantix caused attempted suicides or death.
The suits, all filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan by the same plaintiffs’ law firm, claim Pfizer failed to notify doctors and patients about dangers the company allegedly knew about the pill — including depression and suicidal thoughts–at the time the plaintiffs took the medicine.
And even though Pfizer subsequently added warnings to its package insert, the law firm alleged the drug label is still inadequate.
Pfizer introduced Chantix in the United States in 2006, with hopes it would become a huge product that would help revive flagging company profits, but its sales have wilted amid concern about side effects.
“Defendant intentionally, recklessly, and/or negligently concealed, suppressed, omitted, and/or misrepresented the risks, dangers, defects and disadvantages of Chantix,” attorney Marc Grossman alleged in all three lawsuits.
Grossman is with the Mineola, New York law firm of Sanders Viener Grossman LLP.
Pfizer could not immediately be reached for comment. (Reporting by Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot; editing by Carol Bishopric)
Tags: chantix cases, chantix lawsuit, chantix lawyer, pfizer lawsuit, pfizer lawyer
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Thursday, November 20th, 2008
November 11th, 2008 – The British Government has released data confirming that, like the United States, users of Champix, the European version of the stop-smoking drug known as Chantix in the United States, have been reporting a number of adverse reactions associated with the drug, including suicides and suicidal thoughts.
Chantix and Champix, which are both manufactured by Pfizer, Inc., contain the pharmaceutical ingredient varenicline tartrate, which blocks brain receptors that are normally stimulated by nicotine. The drug is designed to lessen the pleasure effects of nicotine and help users quit smoking.
In the United States, Chantix has been associated with a number of serious and potentially life-threatening side effects, including an increased risk of suicide, suicide attempts and unusual behavior. A number of users have also report developing new-onset diabetes after taking the drug and suffering seizures and blackouts, which could result in serious accidents or injury.
Tags: chantix, Chantix News, chantix suicides
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Saturday, November 15th, 2008
According to the Wall Steet Journal, The FDA said it might upgrade warnings on Pifzer’s Chantrx drug due to recent road-traffic accidents and seizures involving people on Chantix.
According to the Journal article:
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices said 1,001 serious incidents involving Chantix users were reported in the first quarter of this year, based on its analysis of government safety data. That is more than the total number of serious incidents for the top 10 most-prescribed brand-name drugs combined.
Chantix already has been linked to serious psychiatric side effects such as depression and suicidal behavior. In 2007 Pfizer strengthened the warning label. The company has said that nicotine withdrawal itself “can cause changes in behavior, such as irritability and depressed mood.”
This Spring, the FDA issued a warning guide for doctors perscribing Chantix.
Chantix, which had $883 million in total 2007 sales, has experienced a steep decline. Its third-quarter sales in the U.S. fell 49% from last year’s third quarter, dropping to $96 million from $186 million. This summer, Pfizer took out full-page ads in major newspapers defending the drug and noting the severe risks to health from smoking.
Tags: chantix, chantix seizures, chantix suicides, chantrix, pfizer
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