Product Liability Attorney Blog

There has been a great deal of reporting on the settlements that Paxil manufacturer Glaxo Smith Kline, the UK's largest drug manufacturer, has agreed to in recent weeks. While not acknowledging whether the lawsuits were factually correct, the pharma giant met with the plaintiffs privately after several test cases showed that juries were willing to award in favor of the plaintiffs. The exact terms of the suits were not made clear, but the general perception is that the patients were to be compensated in exchange for forgoing further lawsuits against GSK in the future.

The sheer scale of the decision is put into context with a look at the larger picture. According to GSK representatives, the company has settled the majority of Paxil claims, as well as claims stemming from another medication, Avandria. The company has set aside $2.4 billion dollars to handle these cases. This is as large as the budget for some government organizations, and more than most people can readily comprehend. While it may not be enough money to make a dent in GSK's impressive market share - indeed, company shares rose after the announcement of this settlement - it still illustrates the scale of the damage that people perceived being done.

Interestingly, the biggest comment in the Paxil case specifically hinges on the failure to disclose information, rather than the allegation of birth defects in the medicine. While this might be true for the majority of cases, particularly those where the medicine was prescribed despite its known risk of suicidal thought aggravation to children under 18, the failure to acknowledge the significant number of cases dealing with birth defects is sure to frustrate the plaintiffs in those cases. Further complicating the issue is the US-lead investigation of some of GSK's manufacturing plants, particularly those associated with Avandria. Clearly not all the information that could be available is readily at-hand, and this case may be far from as settled as first it seems.

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