Pfizer Unit Settles Suit Over Rezulin

Pfizer Inc.’s Warner-Lambert Co. on Thursday settled a lawsuit filed by a woman who claimed the company’s Rezulin diabetes drug left her in need of a liver transplant.

Jurors in state court in Liberty had deliberated for about 15 hours and were preparing to deliver their verdict when lawyers said the lawsuit had been settled with Shirley Griggs under confidential terms.

Rezulin, designed to help adult diabetics regulate their insulin, was pulled off the market last year after being blamed for at least 63 deaths tied to liver failure.

The company marketed Rezulin knowing it was “unreasonably dangerous,” Griggs’ lawyer, Rainey Booth, told the jury earlier.

In a statement released after the settlement, Pfizer spokesman Robert J. Fauteux said trial evidence showed Griggs’ liver was damaged by a preexisting condition, not by Rezulin.

The agreement comes just six days after New York-based Pfizer had agreed to pay $30 million to settle a case in Texas filed by another Rezulin user who doctors say is dying of liver failure.

A jury had ordered Pfizer to pay $43 million earlier that day and was weighing whether to award punitive damages when the settlement was announced.

The initial award might have been overturned on appeal, Pfizer said at the time.

The case is among the first of more than 4,000 suits to go before a jury on allegations that Warner-Lambert officials hid or downplayed the health risks of the diabetes drug.

Lawyers for Griggs, a retired bank teller, had sought at least $1 million for costs associated with a liver transplant. They argued that Griggs suffered irreversible liver damage in the seven months she took Rezulin.

Shares of Pfizer dropped 27 cents Thursday to close at $40.35 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.