Nevada jury awards $134.5 million in Wyeth drug case

A jury levied a $134.5-million judgment against pharmaceutical giant Wyeth in a lawsuit filed by three Nevada women who claimed the company’s hormone replacement drugs caused their breast cancer.

It was the largest award to date against the Madison, N.J.-based company, which faces about 5,300 similar lawsuits in state and federal courts.

All involve the drugs Premarin, an estrogen replacement, and Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progestin. The drugs are prescribed to ease symptoms of menopause.

The panel deliberated for two days before announcing its verdict late Wednesday in favor of Jeraldine Scofield, 75, of Fallon; Arlene Rowatt, 67, of Incline Village; and Pamela Forrester, 64, of Yerington.

The five-man, two-woman jury returns to court today to consider punitive damages.

Wyeth spokesman Doug Petkus said Thursday that the company would have no comment because the case was not finished. Washoe District Judge Robert Perry had issued a gag order early in the proceedings.

But in an e-mail to the Associated Press, Petkus said 20 similar cases had gone to trial or been otherwise resolved. Of those, he said three resulted in favor of the company, two plaintiff verdicts were set aside by the courts and three cases were dismissed on summary judgment.

The 12 other cases were voluntarily withdrawn by plaintiffs before trial, he said.

In the Reno trial, Wyeth lawyers argued that the drugs were safe and approved by the Food and Drug Administration. They also said information about possible risks was included with every prescription and provided to the women’s doctors.

They also argued that the women had other risk factors, making it impossible to link their cancer with the drugs.

Each of the three women was awarded $7.5 million in past damages. Jurors also awarded $36 million each to Scofield and Rowatt for future damages, and $40 million to Forrester.

After the verdict was announced, the women hugged their attorneys and cried, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

“You so deserved this,” one lawyer, Zoe Littlepage, told them. “You so, so deserved this.”

Geoffrey White, another lawyer for the women, also deferred comment Thursday until after the punitive phase. He said his firm represented 102 other women in Nevada pursuing cases against Wyeth.

The drug company reached an undisclosed settlement last October with a fourth woman who had been part of the lawsuit.

Carol McCreary was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 after taking Prempro for about three years. She died in April at age 59.