Pharmaceutical settlement shows how great injury costs can be

A recent agreement made by GlaxoSmithKline illustrates the depth of damages that can arise from personal injury lawsuits over defective products and failure to warn consumers. According to the New York Times, this agreement stipulates that the company will pay $3 billion to settle allegations of illegal drug marketing and fraud against Medicaid.

This is the largest pharmaceutical settlement to date, breaking previous records of $2.3 billion and $1.4 million settlements. The product that was the focus of this lawsuit is the drug Avandia and the company’s methods of marketing it to doctors. Also under legal scrutiny by the U.S. Justice Department were the company’s alleged manipulation of research.

Avandia is a diabetes drug that was linked to cardiovascular problems. Sale of the drug was restricted by the FDA when these problems drew attention to regulators. Following the announcement of this settlement, the British company announced that they had already been addressing the problems by changing their marketing procedures.

Previous marketing tactics included alleged payments to doctors and bonuses to individual sales representatives; now incentive compensation to sales representatives is service based and related to quality. Nine other drugs produced by the company are also under investigation for similar charges of failure to warn users about known drug dangers.

Failures of products to perform, defective products and other problems that result in personal injury are examples of cases that need to be pursued to recover compensation for expenses, losses and personal harm. New York residents and others that have been injured or had a family member die due to a product failure or defect, should take immediate steps to protect rights of recovery.

Source: International Business Times, “GlaxoSmithKline to Pay $3 Billion in U.S. Settlement – Largest for Pharmaceutical Company,” Ashley Portero, Nov. 3, 2011