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| | The Let Your Sunshine In Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Wyeth drug caused woman's breast cancer .........Prempro | Views: 856 | | Oct 05, 2006 7:33 pm | | Wyeth drug caused woman's breast cancer .........Prempro | # | 
Nita Lopez | | US jury says Wyeth drug caused woman's breast cancer By Jon Hurdle
Wed Oct 4, 5:28 PM ET
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A jury on Wednesday awarded a woman $1 million and her husband $500,000 in compensatory damages after finding that Wyeth's hormone replacement drug Prempro was a cause of her breast cancer.
The trial in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas now moves into a second phase to begin on October 12, in which the jury will decide whether Wyeth failed to warn of the dangers of Prempro.
The jury of five men and three women may award additional punitive damages if it finds Wyeth failed to warn. However, if it finds that the company adequately warned of the drug's risks no damages will be payable, including the compensatory damages awarded by the jury on Wednesday.
"The plaintiff has the burden of proof that the defendant's conduct is negligent, and that it failed to adequately warn of the dangers," Judge Norman Ackerman instructed the jurors.
The lawsuit charged that Wyeth was negligent in the testing, manufacture and marketing of its hormone replacement therapy drugs.
"We disagree that there is any scientific basis to support the jury's finding of a causal link between hormone replacement therapy and the plaintiff's breast cancer," Wyeth spokesman Chris Garland said.
"This is one jury's verdict and cannot be used to predict the outcome of future cases," he added.
In the first federal Prempro trial, a jury last month in Little Rock, Arkansas found Wyeth was not negligent and had adequately warned patients and doctors of the cancer risk associated with the drug.
Wyeth is facing some 5,000 lawsuits involving its hormone replacement drugs.
"Lawyers all around the country are watching what happens in these cases to get a sense of whether Prempro plaintiffs have a chance of winning," said Howard Erichson, professor of law at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, New Jersey.
Deutsche Bank analyst Barbara Ryan predicted that few Prempro plaintiffs will win punitive damages because Wyeth immediately changed the drug's label to reflect an increased cancer risk after a federally sponsored trial showed long-term use of the drug in combination with the female hormone replacement estrogen caused a 26 percent higher risk of breast cancer in women aged 50 to 79 who had not undergone hysterectomies.
"Right away they appropriately relabeled the drug, which resulted in a 60 percent decline in the number of prescriptions" for Prempro, Ryan said. "So the company has very strong defenses against punitive damages."
The plaintiff, Jennie Nelson, 67, of Dayton, Ohio, took Prempro for about six years and blamed it for her breast cancer. As a result of the cancer, she underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
The jury deliberated for about 33 hours over six days before reaching its verdict.
It had appeared to be deadlocked by the second day, but was urged to continue its deliberations by the judge. About three hours before the verdict was announced, the judge replaced one male juror with an alternate.
Nelson's attorneys declined to comment on the reason for the juror replacement, but said the deliberation time reflected a jury that had taken a careful approach to its task.
The market shrugged off the news and Wyeth shares finished off their earlier highs but still up 26 cents at $51.18 on the New York Stock Exchange.
(Additional reporting by Anna Driver and Ransdell Pierson in New York)
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