LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—A federal jury on Monday ruled in favor of a Little Rock woman who accused Wyeth Pharmaceuticals of negligence when she got breast cancer after taking the company's hormone replacement therapy.
Jurors, who began deliberating last week, said Wyeth inadequately warned Donna Scroggin that its drugs Premarin and Prempro carried an increased risk of breast cancer. The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Little Rock also named Upjohn Co., the maker of Provera.
Jurors recommended that Scroggin receive $2.75 million. The punitive phase of the trial is to begin March 3.
Lawsuits against Wyeth have had mixed results. A Little Rock woman, Helene Rush, lost her case against the company last year. A federal appeals court upheld that decision earlier this month.
An Ohio woman was initially awarded $3 million in a case in Pennsylvania, though a judge later overturned the award.
In Reno, Nev., last year, jurors awarded $134 million to three Nevada women who sued over the hormone therapy. But a judge earlier this month cut that amount to about $58 million total -- $23 million in compensatory and $35 million in punitive damages.
The Nevada judgment is the largest award to date against the Madison, N.J.-based company, which faces about 5,300 similar lawsuits across the country in state and federal courts.
All the cases involve the drugs Premarin, an estrogen replacement, and Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progestin.
Both drugs remain on the market and carry the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and both continue to be prescribed annually to hundreds of thousands of women to alleviate symptoms of menopause.
