Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, lost a bid to exclude three medical experts from testifying for patients claiming the company’s epilepsy medication Neurontin increases the risk of suicide.
Pfizer, facing more than 100 Neurontin product-defect lawsuits in federal court in Boston, claimed the experts’ theories of causation were based on “junk science” and sought to have them disqualified. U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris denied the request, saying a U.S. Food and Drug Administration study associated Neurontin use and risk of suicide.
“Here, plaintiffs have successfully demonstrated, by a preponderance of the evidence, that their experts’ general causation testimony is reliable,” Saris said yesterday in her 96-page opinion. The plaintiffs demonstrated that a relationship between the drug and increased suicide risk is “biologically plausible,” she said.
The decision paves the way for the first trial in July on Neurontin, said Mark Lanier, an attorney for the patients. New York-based Pfizer is facing hundreds of Neurontin lawsuits in state and federal courts in the U.S., Lanier said.
“It’s significant that the court has found scientific authority for our position,” Lanier said today in a phone interview.
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