By Buck Daniel –
Our cases are on file and we are awaiting the negotiation phase of this litigation. On November 17, 2014, jurors in West Virginia State Court deliberated for approximately three hours before returning with a verdict in the most recent Actos bladder cancer case. The jury concluded that Takeda hid evidence regarding the development and marketing of Actos, along with its link to cancer. The jury ordered Takeda to pay $155,000 over its destruction of those documents, which prevented the plaintiff from proving his claims that the drug caused his cancer. “The verdict is the death knell for Takeda because it establishes once and for all that they intentionally destroyed evidence to bar bladder-cancer victims from proving the drug harmed them.” This is the eighth Actos patient to take a lawsuit to trial and the fifth to win.
A European study released this month has stated that “despite FDA and EMA warnings to the contrary, [there is] no link between pioglitazone (Actos) and bladder cancer.” Specifically the study found no evidence of an association between bladder cancer and 100 days of cumulative exposure to pioglitazone in either men or women; however, the study did relate that a potential mechanistic link does exist. Pioglitazone is a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-gamma) agonists — and this nuclear transcription factor is overexpressed in bladder tumors.
