Hip Hip Hooray? J&J To Pay $2.5B For 8,000 Hip Implant Suits

After several months of haggling, Johnson & Johnson is proposing to pay nearly $2.5 billion to settle approximately 8,000 lawsuits in the US in which people claim they suffered harm caused by the controversial ASR hip replacements sold by its DePuy unit. The settlement was filed today with a federal court in Toledo, Ohio. The proposal reflects hopes by J&J to resolve the litigation by early next year, given that the number of product recalls and lawsuits are climbing. Three years ago, the DePuy unit recalled 93,000 implanted hips worldwide, including 37,000 in the US, after an exceedingly high failure rate of 12 percent was registered within five years. “The US settlement program provides compensation for eligible patients without the delay and uncertainty of protracted litigation,” says Andrew Ekdahl, worldwide president for the DePuy Synthes Joint Reconstruction unit, in a statement. The company adds that most of the payments are expected to take place next year and the average payout would amount to roughly $250,000. The proposal, which needs agreement from 94 percent of those who are eligible in order to proceed, covers patients who had hip implants removed before August 21, does not cover up to 4,000 other patients who received hip implants. However, J&J may later have to reach another settlement with patients as their devices fail, according to attorneys familiar with the litigation. J&J has suffered enormous negative publicity over its hip implant s...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs