17,500 Seroquel Lawsuits Settled
AstraZeneca has settled 17,000 Seroquel lawsuits over claims the antipsychotic drug caused diabetes and other injuries. AstraZeneca, which has been named in about 26,000 such lawsuits, is participating in a court-ordered mediation with plaintiffs in Orlando, Fla., where federal cases from multiple districts had been consolidated.
According to The Wall Street Journal, AstraZeneca will spend about $198 billion to settle the claims. That averages out to about $11,300 per claimant.
In addition to the thousands settled, the company said an additional 2,900 claims had been dismissed as of June 29.
Seroquel – which was introduced in 1997 – has long been linked to a risk of weight gain and diabetes. In 2003 and 2004, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) directed AstraZeneca and manufacturers of similar antipsychotic drugs to add warnings about these risks to their labels.
In April, AstraZeneca reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to pay $520 million to settle charges that it illegally marketed Seroquel from January 2001 to December 2006 for some uses not approved by the FDA. The drug is approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar depression.
Just last month, the FDA demand that AstraZeneca stop using a promotional letter for Seroquel XR, an extended-release version of the medicine, that doesn’t contain a legally required diabetes warning.
According to a Bloomberg News report, AstraZeneca won the first trial over Seroquel in March, when a New Jersey jury found that the company properly warned a Vietnam veteran’s doctors about the diabetes risk posed by the drug.

