Dive Brief:
- A New Jersey appeals court has reversed a $25.2 million jury verdict against Roche, after a user of the acne medicine Accutane sued the drugmaker and claimed it caused inflammatory bowel disease that led to the loss of his colon.
- The man initially sued Roche in 2003 and a New Jersey jury awarded him $2.5 million. But that verdict was reversed and the case was tried again in 2010. That jury gave him the $25.2 million award.
- The appeals court ruled the plaintiff, Alabama resident Andrew McCarrell, waited too long to bring the case.
Dive Insight:
Here's a ruling for the irony-is-dead crowd. This case has been in court for 12 years and has been tried twice, with the plaintiff winning both times. And now -- only now -- an appeals court has ruled he took too long to file the claim in the first place.
Still, the case has plenty of company. Bloomberg reports that more than 3,000 similar cases are pending, and notes that Roche pulled the brand-name version off the market in 2009 as litigation piled up over claims similar to McCarrell's.
Accutane once was a blockbuster seller, with more than 16 million users.