J&J; Settles Suits Over Contraceptive

Johnson & Johnson has settled lawsuits with about 30 women who claim they developed blood clots after using the company’s Ortho Evra birth control patch, said a lawyer who negotiated the confidential agreements.

Settlements began in January, said plaintiffs’ attorney Ray Chester, who declined to reveal financial terms. In November, U.S. regulators warned that the patch might cause clots and expose women to 60% more hormones than do oral contraceptives. A February study indicated that the patch doubled clot risk compared with the pill.

“It is abundantly clear that the patch causes more clots than the pill,” said Chester, an attorney in Austin, Texas. “Johnson & Johnson is going to lose most of these cases. The cost to defend them and the public relations hit they would take if they tried the cases has tilted them toward settling.”

Johnson & Johnson, the world’s biggest maker of medical devices, has sold patches to 5 million women since Ortho Evra’s launch in 2002. Users have filed about 140 lawsuits claiming that they suffered strokes or clots in the legs or lungs. Lawyers for other users are preparing hundreds of similar lawsuits. The company has not disclosed the settlements or any possible reserves for them.

Ortho Women’s Health & Urology unit, a division of J&J;’s Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc., does not comment on litigation, spokeswoman Julie Keenan said.

J&J;’s willingness to settle Ortho Evra lawsuits contrasts with Merck & Co.’s stance on the 11,500 suits it faces over painkiller Vioxx, which is linked to heart attacks and strokes.

“They’re the anti-Merck,” Chester said.

Merck, which vows to fight each case, has lost three Vioxx trials and has been ordered to pay awards of $253 million, $32 million and $13.5 million since August. Caps on punitive damages will cut the total awards to less than $48 million.

J&J; settled Ortho Evra cases in state courts in New Jersey, Texas and California and federal courts in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Chester said.

One settlement involved Philomena Ugochukwu, 40, who had a massive stroke in March 2004 after wearing the patch for 12 days, he said. The mother of two is now a quadriplegic with brain damage and needs round-the-clock medical care, Chester said. Ugochukwu, a native of Nigeria who lives in Austin, was Chester’s first Ortho Evra client.

J&J;, based in New Brunswick, N.J., sold $1.1 billion in contraceptives last year and expects a decline in 2006 because of “labeling changes and negative media coverage concerning product safety,” its 2005 annual report said.