New York (AFP)
A Pennsylvania jury on Tuesday sentenced Johnson & Johnson to pay $ 8 billion in damages for failing to warn that one of his drugs used in psychiatry was pushing the chest in men, judgment immediately denounced by the pharmaceutical giant who will appeal.
Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals were attacked in the Philadelphia General Complaints Tribunal by Nicholas Murray, a patient who claimed that Risperdal, prescribed to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, had made his chest grow.
The sum is "grossly disproportionate" compared to the initial compensation set at $ 680,000, reacted Johnson & Johnson in a statement.
"The company is confident that this decision will be changed" and "will immediately demand that this excessive and unjustified verdict be dismissed".
The pharmaceutical giant said the court had violated the rights of the defense, including preventing Johnson & Johnson to file "key elements" on the labeling of Risperdal.
J & J faces a series of complaints in state courts for failing to adequately warn of this effect of Risperdal, particularly in Pennsylvania, California and Missouri (center).
Risperdal, approved for the treatment of adults by the Federal Drug Agency, the US Food and Drug Administration, in 1993, generated some $ 737 million in sales in 2018.
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