Following  years of controversy and lawsuits, Roche AG has decided to pull Accutane from the market.

Roche said Accutane will be pulled in the U.S. and 11 other countries. The last date for distribution in the United States was June 25. According to Reuters, Accutane is now no longer available from Roche directly but patients may still be able to get it from pharmacies.

According to Bloomberg.com, the company said a reevaluation of its product line had shown Accutane faced serious competition from generics.  In announcing its decision to pull Accutane, Roche also cited the high cost of product liability suits – it currently faces 5000 such lawsuits – involving the drug.  Accutuane lawsuits have resulted in damage awards to plaintiffs totaling $33 million, Bloomberg said.

Most recently, Roche lost several Accutane lawsuits brought by people who claimed the drug caused them to develop inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as one of the numerous Accutane side effects. In  November 2008, a New Jersey jury ordered the company to pay $13 million to three such plaintiffs.  The previous April, another New Jersey jury awarded $10.5 million to a woman who blamed the drug for her ulcerative colitis. In May 2007, another New Jersey trial  resulted in an  award of $2.62 million to a patient who needed to have his colon and most of his rectum removed after taking the drug.  In October that  same year, a Florida jury  awarded $7 million in damages to another Accutane user who developed the IBD.

Approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in 1982, Accutane has been the subject of controversy for years. It first garnered attention in the late eighties for causing severe birth defects. It has also been known to cause psychiatric problems, and has been linked to hundreds of cases of suicide in the United States.  Accutane has also been associated with problems of the liver, kidneys, central nervous system, and pancreas, as well as the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and auto-immune systems. Besides,the drug’s side effects were studied thoroughly in Canada. The researchers investigated the links between Accutane and severe, possibly fatal skin reactions, including erythema multiforme, Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis. The fact caused a flurry of Accutane lawsuits in Canada.