Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog
Roche Holding AG, the world’s biggest maker of cancer drugs, is pulling its Accutane acne medicine from the U.S. market after juries awarded at least $33 million in damages to users who blamed the drug for bowel disease.
Roche notified the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today that it was withdrawing Accutane after a “reevaluation” of its product lines showed it faced serious challenges from generic competitors, company officials said in a statement.
“In addition, Roche has been faced with high costs from personal-injury lawsuits that the company continues to defend vigorously,” according to the statement.
About 13 million people have taken Accutane since it went on the market in 1982. The medication was Roche’s second-biggest selling drug before the patent expired in 2002 and rivals started selling generic versions. Roche’s prescription market share of the drug is now below 5 percent, the company said.
The company faces as many as 5,000 personal-injury claims over Accutane, said Michael Hook, a Pensacola, Florida-based attorney. He won a $10.5 million verdict against the drugmaker over the medicine in April 2008. He noted that Roche has lost six cases that have gone to trial over the drug.
“We’ve been winning the cases with the drug still on the market, but this move certainly isn’t going to hurt us going forward,” Hook said.
Some Accutane users allege the drugmaker failed to properly warn them the medicine could cause inflammatory bowel disease. The drug also has been linked to birth defects and depression.
Lawyers for John Mullarkey, a 20-year-old Monroeville, Pennsylvania, man facing murder charges over the death of his 16-year-old cheerleader girlfriend, said he was suffering from an Accutane-fueled depression when the killing occurred, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper.
The drug also has been pulled off the market in 11 other countries including France, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Portugal, Norway and Spain.
In November, a state-court jury in New Jersey found company officials didn’t properly warn doctors about Accutane’s health risks and awarded three men a total of $12.9 million in damages.
If you or a family member has been injured because of the fault of someone else; by negligence, personal injury, slip and fall, car accident, medical malpractice, trucking accident, drunk driving, bad product, toxic injury etc then please contact the Fort Worth Texas Product Liability Attorney Dr. Shezad Malik. For a no obligation, free case analysis, please call 817-255-4001 or Contact Me Online.