FIFTH Verdict Against Actos for Causing Bladder Cancer

CALL Nelson, Bryan & Jones today (205-387-7777) if you or a loved one have been diagnosed with cancer after taking Actos or a generic form of Actos

(Bloomberg) -- Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. was ordered by a jury Thursday to pay more than $2.3 million in damages for Actos diabetes drug causing  bladder cancer.

Jurors in Philadelphia deliberated more than eight hours over two days before finding that Takeda failed to properly warn John Kristufek’s doctors about Actos’s cancer risks.

The panel concluded Kristufek deserved more than $300,000 for his medical expenses and $2 million for pain and suffering tied to the cancer diagnosis, his lawyers said.

The jury also said Takeda showed “reckless indifference” to Kristufek’s health by hiding Actos’ risks, a finding that opens up the drugmaker to a potential punitive award. The panel will consider Friday whether to award those damages.

Kristufek is the fifth Actos patient to convince a jury that Takeda’s former top-selling drug causes bladder cancer. Last year, a federal jury in Louisiana ordered Takeda and Eli Lilly & Co., which at one time sold Actos in the U.S., to pay $9 billion to a shopkeeper who blamed his cancer on the drug. That award was cut to $36.8 million.

“Given the number of trial losses Takeda has suffered over Actos, the company should seriously consider negotiating some sort of global settlement,” said Carl Tobias, who teaches product-liability law at the University of Richmond in Virginia. “They still face thousands of lawsuits over this drug.”

Actos has generated more than $16 billion in sales since its 1999 release, according to court filings. Sales peaked in the year ended in March 2011 at $4.5 billion, 27 percent of Takeda’s revenue at the time, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Takeda now faces generic competition from Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. over the diabetes drug.

Kristufek and other former Actos users argue Takeda executives ignored or downplayed concerns about the drug’s cancer-causing potential before it went on sale in the U.S. in 1999 and misled U.S. regulators about the medicine’s risks.

Juries in California and Maryland in 2013 ordered Takeda to pay a combined $8.2 million in damages over the handling of the drug.

Last year, a Philadelphia jury awarded more than $2 million in damages to a retired accountant who blamed her bladder cancer on Actos.