Jury cuts some Wyeth damages, to deliberate more

Last Updated: 2007-10-15 15:01:26 -0400 (Reuters Health)

RENO, Nev. (Reuters) - A Nevada jury cut by about $100 million a compensatory damage award against Wyeth in a trial relating to hormone replacement medicine, after the judge determined jurors had included some punitive damages in a compensatory damage sum from an earlier deliberation.

But the jury will reconvene next week to consider punitive damages, leaving uncertain the total sum Wyeth faces.

The jury earlier this week ordered Wyeth to pay about $135 million in compensatory damages to three women who blamed their breast cancer on the drugmaker's hormone replacement medicine.

On Friday the jury cut the sum to $35 million after telling the judge that the original sum included some punitive damages, which are to be figured separately.

"We can correct it now. If we don't correct it now, we are going to end up trying this case again down the road," said Judge Robert Perry of the Second Judicial District Court of Nevada.

Three plaintiffs, Arlene Rowatt, Pamela Forrester and Jeraldine Scofield, had been awarded about $7.5 million each for past damages.

Future damages were cut substantially, to $4.5 million from $36 million for Rowatt, to $3 million from $36 million for Scofield, and to $5 million from $40 million for Forrester.

The three women took Wyeth's hormone replacement drugs Prempro and/or Premarin, which have been linked to increased risk of breast cancer.

Wyeth is facing more than 5,000 lawsuits from those who believe they were harmed by hormone replacement therapies, which have been used by millions of women to control the effects of menopause and remain on the market.

In trials, Wyeth lawyers argued that the company told doctors and patients about the elevated breast cancer risks, included them on the drugs' labels and made no attempt to conceal them.

But the five men and two women on the jury found Wyeth concealed a material fact about the safety of the products and that company acted with malice or fraud.

Of the previous hormone therapy cases to reach a jury verdict, three were decided in Wyeth's favor and two cases won by plaintiffs were later set aside by the courts. In addition, three cases have been dismissed on summary judgment and 12 cases were voluntarily dismissed by plaintiffs before trial, Wyeth said.