Glaxo Pays $60M To Settle 700 Avandia Lawsuits

Still more litigation news today. This time, GlaxoSmithKline reportedly agreed to settle the first batch of lawsuits that allege its Avandia diabetes pill causes heart attacks and strokes, Bloomberg News writes. However, the reported numbers may be subject to change, according to sources.

The lawsuits were filed by Mark Lanier, a prominent Houston attorney who sparred five years ago with Merck over Vioxx, and Sol Weiss, who is based in Philadelphia and wrestled with Wyeth over its fen-phen diet pills more than a decade ago.

The deal comes as Glaxo faces its first Avandia trial in state court in Philadelphia in July and about 4,000 lawsuits that have been filed so far. Gbola Amusa, an analyst at UBS, recently told Bloomberg the drugmaker may face up to $6 billion in liability, especially if Avandia is withdrawn. The FDA is currently debating whether to allow a safety study to proceed (see here) and will present its own findings to an FDA panel in July.