AstraZeneca announced that a jury in a New Jersey state court in the US ruled in favour of AstraZeneca by rejecting a Louisiana plaintiff's claims that SEROQUEL caused his alleged injuries. The case, Baker v. AstraZeneca, was the first product liability case to go to trial. The previous nine cases prepared for trial have been dismissed by both federal and state court judges, and approximately 2,600 additional cases have been abandoned by the plaintiffs' attorneys themselves.
The heart of these cases are unproven claims that SEROQUEL causes diabetes in individual plaintiffs. In case after case, jurors, judges and even plaintiffs' lawyers themselves have found that plaintiffs simply cannot show through any accepted scientific method that AstraZeneca is responsible for their alleged injuries.
In the cases that have been prepared for trial to date, including the case decided by a jury in New Jersey, the facts show that the plaintiffs either already had diabetes or had so many pre-existing risk factors that they were already at a significantly increased risk of diabetes before they first took SEROQUEL.
AstraZeneca has studied SEROQUEL extensively and shared the appropriate and required data with the US Food and Drug Administration - both before and after the agency first approved it in 1997.
About SEROQUEL
SEROQUEL was first approved in the US in 1997 and is currently approved for depressive episodes in bipolar disorder in adults; manic episodes in bipolar disorder in adults when used alone or with lithium or divalproex; manic episodes in bipolar disorder in children and adolescents ages 10 to 17 years; long-term treatment of bipolar disorder in adults with lithium or divalproex; schizophrenia in adults; and schizophrenia in adolescents ages 13-17 years.
About AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business with a primary focus on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines. As a leader in gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neuroscience, respiratory and inflammation, oncology and infectious disease medicines, AstraZeneca generated global revenues of US $32.8 billion in 2009. For more information please visit: www.astrazeneca.com.