AstraZeneca is faced with loads of trouble lately. For instance, I recently wrote about a current federal lawsuit against the pharmaceutical giant, alleging that the company paid a Chicago-based psychiatrist to overprescribe the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel to his nursing home bound patients. According to recent reports, the company may have even more problems related to Seroquel.
AstraZeneca may face as many as 6,000 trials of lawsuits claiming that Seroquel caused diabetes. U.S. District Judge, Anne Conway, recently recommended sending the slew of suits back to their home courts for trial as test cases. The lawyers for former Seroquel users contend that they are ready to move forward with their clients’ claims that the London-based pharmaceutical company downplayed Seroquel’s diabetes risks.
Nevertheless, AstraZeneca’s lawyers asked the judge to send back only a limited number of the 14,000 lawsuits, arguing that the cases would place an undue burden on judges across the country. In spite of the company’s estimated $623 million in legal defense costs this year, the company’s stocks have risen by 11% this year on the New York Stock Exchange.
