Roche To Pay $25M Over Accutane And Bowel Disease
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // February 17th, 2010 // 7:56 am
Andrew McCarrell, 38, won a jury verdict at a retrial in Atlantic City, N.J. An appeals court ordered a new trial, having overturned a $2.6 million award he won in May 2007. McCarrell, a computer technician from Birmingham, Al., testified he developed inflammatory bowel disease after taking Accutane for acne in 1995. He needed five surgeries, including one to remove his colon.
The verdict was the largest of six for Accutane users who won awards totaling $56 million, Bloomberg News notes. Roche lost every case, although a Florida appeals court overturned one judgment for $7.2 million. In each case, plaintiffs claimed Roche failed to warn adequately of the risks (background on links to IBD).
Roche, which intends to appeal the verdict, stopped selling Accutane in June 2009, citing generic competition and the high cost of defending personal injury lawsuits. Roche faces almost 1,000 other lawsuits over Accutane, which has also been associated with birth defects and depression (some background and here).
Bill
Hahaha. This is what Roche gets. They made this guy wait 3 MORE years after he won $2.67 million and now he wins again but he gets $25 Million!!!!! This is exactly what Roche deserves for not only marketing this drug and hiding facts, but for making this guy wait and wait and wait. If they don’t settle the rest of the cases I hope they get hit with even larger verdicts. This is great news!!!
patrons99
The amount of this jury award is still pretty much “chump change” to pharma…just an already budgeted-for cost of doing business.
This case might actually be a strong example of the need for tort reform: not to protect pharma, but to allow dermatologists to practice medicine with affordable malpractice insurance. Taxpayers will ultimately pick up the tab.
How frequent is IBD in accutane patients? Is there a dose-response relationship? I suspect that its idiosyncratic. Ditto, depression. Its teratogenicity has been known for a long time. Any drug has the potential to cause an immediately life-threatening anaphylactic allergic reaction.
There is a much greater need for the U.S. DOJ to issue the “ultimate sanction” against pharma for criminal misconduct. That will get their attention.
Bill
I agree Patrons99. In fact, I’d like to see all of their executives who hid information to be put in jail. These companies are worth BILLIONS. These little verdicts won’t even make them blink. Their marketing depts knew that they may face civil lawsuits. But as long as they made a huge profit they wouldn’t care. If they know they may face jail time they’d clean up their acts.