J&J ‘to pay out $4 billion’ in fresh legal case
pharmafile | November 14, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | J&J, JJ, Risperdal, fines, hip replacement
Johnson & Johnson is set to pay up to $4 billion to settle thousands of legal cases related to patients who suffered from a faulty hip replacement, according to reports.
The sources for the reports are said to be lawyers involved in the cases, who suggested that a formal announcement is to be made shortly – although the company is not commenting at present.
J&J’s DePuy Orthopaedics unit produced the all-metal hip replacements but recalled them in 2010 after patients complained of pain, and a significant proportion of the devices were shown to need replacing after only a few years.
If the figures on the settlement are accurate, it will have been a bad couple of weeks for J&J: at the beginning of November the US group admitted promoting its big-selling antipsychotic drug Risperdal off-label, costing the firm $2.2 billion in fines.
J&J’s pharma unit Janssen pleaded guilty and is to face criminal fines totalling $485 million, and civil settlements with the federal government and states totalling $1.72 billion.
The US Department of Justice found that from 1999 to 2005, J&J and Janssen promoted Risperdal for unapproved uses, including controlling aggression and anxiety in elderly dementia patients and treating behavioural disturbances in children and in individuals with disabilities.
Eighteen months ago a judge in the US state of Arkansas slapped a $1.19 billion fine on J&J after it was found to be downplaying the safety risk of Risperdal.
The judge said that Janssen had been misleading patients and doctors about risks associated with the drug, and has ordered the firm to pay the fine – the largest on record for a state fraud case involving a pharma company.
J&J’s marketing of Risperdal has been punished by several big fines in recent years. In January last year Texas State settled a similar case with Janssen for $158 million.
In 2011 a South Carolina judge ordered civil penalties of $327 million against Janssen, and in 2010, a Louisiana jury awarded nearly $258 million in damages.
Adam Hill
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