Pfizer must pay at least pay at least $4,000,000.00 in damages to a woman who developed breast cancer after taking the companies Prempro menopause drug.
A Jury in the USA concluded that Pfizers Wyeth unit was liable for causing Margaret Fraser’s cancer and that Prempro is an unreasonably dangerous product. The Jury also found that Wyeth should pay punitive damages over its handling of the drug.
The jury found that W yeth’s official handling of the drug was reckless and they misrepresented the risks and benefits of its drug to patients and doctors.
More than six million women took Prempro and related menopause drugs to treat symptoms such as hot flushes and mood swings before a 2002 study highlighted the drugs link to cancer.
Wyeth’s sales of the medicines, which are still on the market, topped $2 Billion before the release of the Women’s Health Initiative, study sponsored by the National Institute of Health.
Until 1995 many menopausal women combined Premarin, Wyeth’s estrogen-based drug with progestin-laden Provera, made by Pfizer’s Upjohn Unit to relieve their symptoms. Wyeth combined the two hormones in its Prempro pill.
Premarin and Provera were previously licenced for sale in Ireland by the Irish Medicines Board.
