Dive Brief:
- Takeda Pharma is offering to settle more than 8,000 federal and state lawsuits over its diabetes drug Actos for $2.2 billion, Bloomberg reports.
- That would be a historic class action settlement for a pharmaceutical company that would be among the largest ever, equating to about $275,000 for each case.
- Plaintiffs claim that Takeda hid the cancer risks of diabetes drug Actos. This deal is still not finalized and is subject to change. The 8,000 cases are distributed between 3,500 suits in Louisiana and 4,500 suits in Illinois, West Virginia, California, and Pennsylvania.
Dive Insight:
The settlement would be massive, but nowhere near as massive as the costs of big time jury-awarded penalties. In 2014, a federal jury ordered Takeda and partner Eli Lilly to pay a $9 billion award to a plaintiff who said Actos caused his bladder cancer—but that award was slashed considerably by a federal judge to just $36.8 million.
Takeda seems eager to avoid more headlines along that line. According to Bloomberg, company CEO Christophe Weber declined to comment about ongoing litigation, reiterating that, "Takeda always had the same position. We believe that Actos provides the right benefit risk ratio for patients, is still a good medicine for patients."