AstraZeneca has agreed to settle Seroquel lawsuits filed by about 200 people who claim that the drug maker failed to adequately warn about the risk of diabetes and other side effects of their antipsychotic drug. The Seroquel settlements are reportedly the first payments AstraZeneca has made out of an estimated 26,000 claims that have been presented against the company.
For the past three years, the Chantix smoking cessation pill has caused a stir after being associated with suicidal behavior and vivid dreams. Consequently, the government banned the Pfizer drug for pilots and licenses wouldn’t be issued to truck drivers taking the med. The FDA subsequently imposed a risk management program and Pfizer added warnings.
In an effort to get its arms around massive litigation, GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to settle yet another wad of product-liability lawsuits involving one of its popular meds. The latest deal involves an agreement to pay more than $1 billion to settle some 800 cases alleging its Paxil antidepressant caused birth defects in children borne to women who took the drug, Bloomberg News writes.
Dr. Mary Newport sees the symptoms more and more in the babies she treats: oddly stiff limbs, severe tremors, vomiting, diarrhea, insomnia, crying that never stops. The common denominator: Their mothers were taking prescription drugs, mostly painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin, and antianxiety drugs like Xanax during pregnancy. Some of the moms had no idea these medications would hurt their developing babies — after all, it’s not like it’s heroin or cocaine, many think.
The SSRI antidepressant makers are desperate to find new customers, so they recently have been focusing on capturing groups for which the drugs were usually considered off limits. The latest marketing coup managed to open up sales to roughly 614,000 American pilots. Under a new policy announced on April 5, 2010, pilots diagnosed with depression can seek permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to take one of four SSRIs, including Eli Lilly’s Prozac, Pfizer’s Zoloft, and Forest Laboratories’ Celexa and Lexapro.