$10.5M Awarded in Accutane Lawsuit
The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting a Layton woman awarded was awarded $10.5M after
She said she who says she got inflammatory bowel disease after taking Accutane was awarded $10.5 million in damages this week in a New Jersey state court.
Kamie Kendall, 24, who began taking Accutane to treat acne when she was 12, is the third person who has taken the drug to file suit and win a judgment against Roche. Between the three cases, the pharmaceutical company has been ordered to pay $26 million in damages.
“It [IBD] is a very difficult disease to deal with,” said one of Kendall’s attorneys, Mike Hook, of Pensacola, Fla., who is representing 450 other clients - including as many as 20 Utahns - who say they also experienced the condition after taking the drug.
“We’re three and zero. Most pharmaceutical cases, the plaintiffs typically don’t start out on the winning side,” he said.
Kendall took Accutane off and on between 1997 and 2004 for cystic acne. In 1999, she was diagnosed with IBD, and six years later had her colon removed, Hook said. Since then, she has suffered from chronic diarrhea.
After hearing more than a dozen witnesses - including David Sachar, a doctor who chairs the Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee on gastroenterology - a jury found that Accutane causes IBD and that Roche’s failure to provide an adequate warning on its drug label was a proximate cause of Kendall developing it.
The drug’s link to IBD is “information the company knew . . . and didn’t share,” Hook said.
Roche, meanwhile, argues the Accutane labeling has contained a warning about inflammatory bowel disease for more than 20 years.
“The cause of inflammatory bowel disease remains unknown and there is no reliable scientific evidence that Accutane causes inflammatory bowel disease,” Roche released in a statement. “The company believes it has significant grounds for appeal and will pursue them.”
Approved by the FDA in 1982 to treat severe acne, Accutane has been linked to other problems, including birth defects and psychiatric problems. David Graham, associate director for science and medicine in the FDA’s Office of Drug Safety, has recommended the market withdrawal of the drug.
Hook, who will try two more Accutane cases in July, said the plaintiffs won’t collect on the damages “until the appeals run the process,” he said. “But we feel very confident on the appeal and feel justice will ultimately be served.”
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