AstraZeneca said a jury in Middlesex County Superior Court in New Jersey voted 7 to 1 in favor of the drugmaker, after deliberating for seven hours over the past two days. Judge Jessica Mayer in New Brunswick presided over the trial, which included 15 days of testimony.
The case was brought by Ted Baker, a 61-year-old Vietnam veteran who developed diabetes after taking Seroquel for about three years and blamed it on the blockbuster drug.
Baker, of Bastrop, La., took Seroquel from 2001 through 2006 for posttraumatic stress disorder and depression, according to AstraZeneca.
"The jury found ... that AstraZeneca's Seroquel label provided prescribing doctors adequate warning with respect to the risk of diabetes," Arthur Brown, outside counsel for AstraZeneca, told The Associated Press in an interview.
An attorney for Baker did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Seroquel is officially approved for treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but it is widely prescribed for unapproved uses, including other psychiatric conditions and insomnia. Because of all that so called off-label use, the drug brings in more than $4 billion in annual sales. It's been on the market since 1997.
Like other drugs in the widely used class called atypical antipsychotics, Seroquel carries a host of serious warnings, including risk of developing high blood sugar, diabetes complications, cholesterol problems and suicidal thoughts and behavior.
AstraZeneca faces product liability lawsuits involving about 22,100 plaintiff groups alleging that Seroquel caused harm. Cases involving about 3,460 additional plaintiff groups had been filed but not yet served as of December 2009, according to the company's annual report.
Many of the cases are consolidated in federal court in the Middle District of Florida, under Judge Anne Conway.
Previously, nine Seroquel cases brought by plaintiffs in New Jersey, Delaware and Florida were dismissed before the start of a trial. About 2,660 other cases have been dismissed either by a judge's order — some over questions about the qualifications of expert plaintiff witnesses — or by the plaintiff withdrawing the case.
Score one for AZ.
Remember, Merck won most of its Vioxx trials!
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