Pfizer faces lawsuits over Lipitor
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is facing a large amount of lawsuits from women who claim that the firm was aware that its anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor was causing possible serious side effects.
The number of lawsuits has tremendously risen during the last five months from women who say that taking Lipitor gave them type-2 diabetes.
As a result, the federal judicial panel decided to consolidate all Lipitor diabetes lawsuits from around the country into a single Federal courtroom in South Carolina. Pfizer opposed the consolidation claiming that this would lead to copycat filings; however, the first case is to be tried next July.
It appears that the litigation will mainly focus on how big a diabetes risk do women using Lipitor face, and whether that risk is mitigated by drug’s cardiovascular benefits.
“We will ask a jury to decide what it’s worth to take five years of someone’s life,” Hahn told. He added that the number of cases could increase to more than 10,000.
Pfizer denies any accusations that Lipitor caused the plaintiffs’ diabetes.
Anyhow, Pfizer could also opt to settle before a single case is tried to avoid possible negative exposure or to prevent potentially damaging information from coming to light.
Source: Reuters
