Actos News
First Federal Actos Bladder Cancer Trial to Begin Next Month
January 16, 2014
The first Actos case to go before a jury in federal court is scheduled to begin opening arguments on February 3. The case involves a New York man who developed bladder cancer while taking Actos, a diabetes drug manufactured by Takeda Pharmaceutical.
Terrence Allen, who was on Actos for roughly seven years, was diagnosed with bladder cancer in January of 2011. According to the lawsuit, Allen claims that his bladder cancer was caused by taking Actos, and that Takeda failed to warn Actos users about the risks associated with the drug. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned in 2011 that a year or more of exposure to Actos can increase the risk of developing bladder cancer by at least 40 percent.
The Allen case is one of more than 2,600 Actos bladder cancer cases that have been consolidated into a federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) before the Honorable Rebecca Doherty, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Louisiana. The trial is the first of two early test trials in the MDL, also known as bellwether trials. These bellwether trials will be closely monitored as their results will likely influence future settlements in other Actos cases.
So far, three state court trials concerning Actos have been conducted. In the first two trials, jurors found Takeda acted negligently in concealing the risk of bladder cancer from the plaintiffs and their physicians. In April of last year, a jury in Los Angeles awarded $6.5 million to a California man with terminal cancer and his wife. A second trial in Baltimore resulted in a jury award of $1.7 million to the family of a man who died of bladder cancer. Unfortunately, the judges in both trials had to nullify the jury awards due to other legal factors. Both of these cases are on appeal to overturn the rulings. The third state trial resulted in a defense verdict.
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