Personal Injury Law

Pfizer Popped With $6.3M Prempro Verdict

By Greg Jones

A Pennsylvania jury has ruled that two Pfizer Inc. units areliable for at least $6.3 million in compensatory damages to an Illinois woman who developed breast cancer after she began taking the menopause drugs Prempro and Provera. The jury has yet to decide on punitive damages.

On Friday, that the jury in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas had issued the verdict after finding that the combination of Wyeth's Prempro and Pharmacia & Upjohn's Provera substantially contributed to 66-year-old plaintiff Donna Kendall's breast cancer.

Kendall, whose case is one of about 1,500 Prempro lawsuits pending in Philadelphia, took the hormone-replacement drugs for 11 years.

Wyeth and Upjohn have prevailed in the "vast majority" of hormone therapy cases set for trial.

Earlier in November, a jury in the same court ordered Pfizer to fork over $75 million in punitive damages to bellwether plaintiff Connie Barton, who developed invasive breast cancer after she began taking Prempro. The same jury had previously awarded Barton $3.7 million in compensatory damages.

Full post as published by Charlotte Personal Injury Lawyer on November 23, 2009 (boomark / email).