Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. and Eli Lilly & Co. were ordered to pay a combined $9 billion in punitive damages after a federal court jury in Lafayette, Louisiana found they hid the cancer risks of their Actos diabetes medicine in the first U.S. trial of its kind. Takeda, based in Osaka, Japan, was ordered to pay $6 billion. Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly, Takeda’s partner, was ordered to pay $3 billion.
Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz was among the first to file suit on behalf of individuals suffering injury as a result of ingesting Actos. Their early work on these cases, together with their lengthy pedigree of representing the victims of defective pharmaceutical products, led the Court overseeing the nationwide Actos litigation to appoint them to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee.
The firm will be issuing a statement later today.
