Article: Judge Cuts $78.7M PREMPRO Damage Award

On February 1, 2010, a Pennsylvania state court judge reduced a $78.7 million award to a woman who blames Wyeth's menopause drug Prempro for her breast cancer.

Judge Norman Ackerman found that a $75 million punitive award in a verdict for Connie Barton was excessive and slashed it to $5.6 million. The judge, however, left another $3.7 million award in compensatory damages intact, and added more than $1.2 million in interest.

Ms. Barton's lawsuit was among the nearly 10,000 against Pfizer and its Wyeth and Upjohn units. More than 6 million women have taken menopause pills made by these companies. Prempro, the best seller of these drugs, combines two other hormone-replacement drugs.

Hormone-replacement therapy is aimed at treating menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings. A 2002 federal study, however, linked the use of "combination hormone" drugs such as Prempro to an increased risk for breast cancer, heart disease and strokes.

Wyeth has lost six of nine jury verdicts and Upjohn has lost three cases at the jury stage over the drugs. Pfizer, which recently acquired Wyeth and merged with Upjohn in 2003, is appealing the verdicts.

Chris Loder, Pfizer’s spokesman, said that two of the jury verdicts had been reversed at the post-trial stage. Wyeth also has won five summary judgments, dismissals in another 3,000 Prempro cases, and has had 15 cases that were set for trial dismissed by plaintiffs voluntarily.

While Ms. Barton's punitive damage award was cut by Judge Ackerman, who likely took the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent guidance on punitive damage awards into account, the jury finding was nevertheless upheld. And as such, the decision is also the first of its kind made at the post-trial stage of Prempro cases being litigated in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.