Novartis AG must pay $12.8 million to a North Carolina woman’s family over claims that the company’s bone-strengthening drugs Aredia and Zometa caused irreversible bone damage, a jury ruled.
The award will be reduced to about $1.1 million under state law.
Jurors in federal district court in Winston-Salem deliberated about 12 hours over three days before finding Tuesday that Novartis, based in Basel, Switzerland, failed to adequately warn Rita Fussman about the drugs’ risks. Fussman’s family alleged that the drugs ate away her jaw while she struggled through treatments for breast cancer before dying last year.
“We’re pleased that the jury saw fit to award punitive damages because the evidence produced more than justified such an award,” Robert Germany, Fussman’s attorney, said in an interview after jurors returned the verdict.
The Fussman family’s lawsuit was the third product-liability case to go to trial over the bone-strengthening treatments. Last month, a New Jersey jury rejected a woman’s claims that Aredia and Zometa caused her jaw deterioration. In October 2009, a Montana jury ordered Novartis to pay $3.2 million in damages to a cancer patient who made the same claims over the medicines.
Novartis is facing about 700 suits over the bone-strengthening medicines, according to court filings. Some of the cases have been consolidated before a federal judge in Tennessee. Others, like Fussman’s, have been sent back to their home courts for trial. Still other cases have been heard in state courts around the country.
Julie Masow, a U.S. spokeswoman for Novartis, said the company was disappointed with the jury’s verdict. “We are reviewing our appellate options,” she said in an e-mailed statement.
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