Jury
orders Bayer, J&J to pay $28 million in Xarelto lawsuit
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[December 06, 2017] By
Tina Bellon
(Reuters) - A Philadelphia state court jury
on Tuesday ordered Bayer AG and Johnson & Johnson to pay $27.8 million
to an Indiana couple over the drugmakers' failure to warn of internal
bleeding risks from their blood thinner Xarelto.
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The jury slapped the companies, which jointly developed the
blockbuster drug, with $1.8 million in compensatory and $26 million
in punitive damages, according to the couple's lawyer.
The verdict marks the first trial loss in litigation over Xarelto.
Bayer and J&J have won three previous cases in federal court.
Bayer in a statement said it believed there was no basis for the
verdict, including the punitive damages award, and said it was going
to appeal the verdict.
Janssen, J&J's pharmaceutical subsidiary, in a statement also said
it was going to appeal the verdict, adding that it contradicted
years of scientific data and repeated confirmations of Xarelto's
safety by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
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"Xarelto is the worst in class of the new blood thinners," Michael
Weinkowitz, the couple's lawyer, said in a statement. "The serious
health complications suffered by thousands of patients could have
been avoided if physicians were properly instructed about the
risks."
Lynn Hartman and her husband had sued the drugmakers in 2015.
Hartman was prescribed Xarelto to prevent strokes as a result of
atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat. She took the drug for
approximately one year and in June 2014 was hospitalized with severe
gastrointestinal bleeding, which she blamed on Xarelto. She has
since recovered.
The trial was the first of roughly 1,400 Xarelto cases pending in
the Philadelphia court.
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More than 18,500 cases are pending in federal court, where they are
consolidated in a multidistrict litigation at the U.S. District
Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Federal juries have cleared the companies of liability in three
previous trials. The latest verdict in the federal litigation came
down in August in the case of a Mississippi woman.
Xarelto is Bayer's best-selling drug and in 2016 contributed 2.9
billion euros ($3.41 billion) in revenues to the German group's
pharmaceutical business.
J&J in 2016 reported $2.2 billion in revenues from Xarelto.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Xarelto in 2011. The
drug is prescribed for people with atrial fibrillation and to treat
and reduce the risk of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms.
(Reporting by Anthony Lin; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrew Hay)
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