GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK), which is paying $3 billion to resolve government claims that it illegally marketed drugs such as the Avandia diabetes medication, agreed to settle more lawsuits over the pills, a lawyer said.
Glaxo, the U.K.’s biggest drugmaker, agreed last month to resolve more than 20,000 cases alleging Avandia causes heart attacks, said Paul Kiesel, a lawyer for former users. The accord, reached in court-ordered mediation, included a case that was set for trial in state court in Los Angeles, he said.
“We are pleased the mediation has successfully resulted in the settlement of a significant number of the remaining cases,” Kiesel, one of the lead lawyers for plaintiffs in the Avandia litigation, said yesterday in a telephone interview.
The settlements are part of London-based Glaxo’s efforts to resolve legal issues stretching back more than a decade. Executives announced in November that the drugmaker will pay $3 billion to settle U.S. criminal and civil probes into whether Glaxo illegally marketed Avandia and other medications.
The company already has agreed to pay at least $700 million to settle more than 15,000 patients’ claims that Avandia caused heart attacks and strokes, people familiar with the accords said last year.
The most-recent settlements of Avandia patients’ suits “are covered by existing provisions and those payments will be funded through existing cash resources,” Bernadette King, a U.S.-based Glaxo spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
GlaxoSmithKline Agrees to Settle 20,000 More Avandia Cases, Lawyer Says - Bloomberg
via bloomberg.com
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