Prempro Settlement Reached in Lawsuit Over HRT Breast Cancer

Pfizer Inc. and an Arkansas woman have reached a settlement for a Prempro lawsuit that alleged the menopause drug caused the plaintiff to develop breast cancer, allowing the drug maker to avoid a new trial to over the amount of punitive damages that may be owed.

The Prempro settlement comes after Pfizer successfully appealed a prior award of $27 million in punitive damages that was handed down by a federal jury as punishment for the drug maker’s reckless disregard for the risk of injury to consumers. However, the appeals court upheld the jury’s award of $2.7 million in compensatory damages and ordered a new trial on whether the drug maker should be required to pay punitive damages and the amount of any such award.

The case involves a Prempro lawsuit filed by Donna Scroggin, who alleged that the drug maker ignored and downplayed the risk of breast cancer from the hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Details of the settlement were not disclosed, but the agreement allows the company to avoid a potential verdict that could have cost tens of millions of dollars.

Prempro is a hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that contains a combination of the drugs Provera and Premarin. The drug was originally developed by Wyeth, which was acquired by Pfizer last year. HRTs use hormones and progestins to artificially boost hormone levels in women undergoing menopause due to surgery or in postmenopausal women, to provide relief from symptoms such as hot flashes, irregular menstruation or weight gain.

In 2002 the National Institutes of Health released the results of studies that found women receiving HRT were at higher risk of breast cancer, strokes and heart attacks. The studies, part of the Women’s Health Initiative, sparked most of the hormone replacement therapy breast cancer lawsuits currently pending throughout the country.

Scroggin’s Prempro lawsuit is one of about 9,000 pending against Pfizer’s Wyeth unit by women who claim that they developed breast cancer from the hormone replacement therapy. Wyeth has lost five of the last seven HRT lawsuits that have gone to trial, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages. The punitive damages have been awarded by juries who saw Wyeth’s behavior as reckless disregard for the risk of injury to consumers.