This is Michael Brady Lynch, lead trial attorney for The Michael Brady Lynch Firm.
This is truly deplorable conduct on behalf off the manufacturer of Actos.
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. was ordered by a jury to pay $155,000 over its destruction of documents about its Actos diabetes medicine after the panel concluded the missing files blocked a man from proving his claims that the drug caused his cancer.
Jurors in state court in Martinsburg, West Virginia, deliberated about three hours today before concluding Takeda officials intentionally destroyed files about the development and marketing of Actos. The panel awarded compensatory damages to retired bakery worker Richard Myers.
The panel found the systematic document destruction blocked Myers from having access to evidence that could have proved his claims that Takeda failed to adequately warn about the diabetes drug’s cancer risks.
The West Virginia verdict comes more than a month after a state court jury in Pennsylvania ordered Takeda to pay $2 million to a former Actos user over her bladder cancer and two weeks after a federal judge in Louisiana upheld a punitive-damage award against the drugmaker over the medicine.
Some Background on Actos:
Actos (pioglitazone) was approved by the FDA in 1999 to treat Type 2 diabetes. In 2005, a study found a link between use of Actos and increased risk of bladder cancer. In 2010, the FDA announced that it would be investigating evidence of the connection between bladder cancer and Actos to evaluate the potential risk. Early in 2011, the American Diabetes Association published another study that also found a link between bladder cancer and Actos.
In June 2011, the FDA issued a public safety announcement warning that use of Actos for longer than 12 months may increase the risk of developing bladder cancer, and ordered that warning to be added to the Actos label. The warning came after the agency reviewed the five-year results of an ongoing 10-year epidemiological study of Actos side effects.
The same month, sales of Actos were suspended in France and Germany because of the risk of Actos bladder cancer. However, there has been no such Actos recall in the United States.
Following the FDA warning, many patients took the step of filing an Actos bladder cancer lawsuit. Such lawsuits allege that Takeda knew or should have known of the risk of Actos bladder cancer, but failed to warn the public and the medical community. In December 2011, an Actos MDL was established in the Western District of Louisiana to consolidate Actos lawsuits at the federal level. Altogether, there are currently more than 1,000 Actos cases pending in state and federal courts, and that number is expected to grow.
Studies have shown that those who use Actos for over one year have as much as a 40 percent increase in the risk for bladder cancer. The risk seems to be increased in the male population and further increased with Actos use over two years.
The Michael Brady Lynch Firm has been at the forefront of litigation involving the association between bladder cancer and Actos and is aggressively pursuing claims against the manufacturer of Actos. If you or someone you know has taken Actos and have bladder cancer, please contact me directly for a free, no-obligation evaluation of your claim.
About the Firm: The Michael Brady Lynch Firm is a trial firm with a focus on pharmaceutical mass tort cases involving SSRI and Anti-Seizure Medication Birth Defects including Lexapro, Zoloft, Effexor, Prozac, Celexa, Paxil, Depakote and Topamax, Xarelto bleeding injuries, Mirena IUD, Actos Bladder Cancer, Testosterone heart attack and stroke injuries and medical device cases including DePuy Hip and Trans-Vaginal Mesh cases. Contact us today if you or someone you know has experienced side effects involving these products.