Pfizer’s Irish Made “Lipitor” Drug Facing Law Suits in the United States

Now over 900 medical negligence cases have been filed against Pfizer in US federal Courts

Plaintiffs seek compensation because they claim Lipitor caused them to develop type-2 diabetes and that the pharmaceutical drug company did not sufficiently warn them of the risk. Some plaintiffs even say that the pharmaceutical giant was deliberately hiding the risk from the general public.

Pfizer currently denies liability and says it will fight the medical negligence compensation claims.

Lipitor is a cholesterol lowering drug. It belongs to a group of pharmaceuticals called statins which block the production of cholesterol in the liver. Usually, they are used to lower the risk of heart disease.

Several academic studies have shown an increased risk of type-2 diabetes in female statin users. In 2012 the FDA, in the USA, ordered Pfizer to change the labeling of Lipitor to include warnings about increased risk of diabetes. It is since this label change that the law suits have begun in the US.

However the FDA still stands behind the drug. “Clearly, we think that the heart benefit of statins outweighs this small increased risk (for diabetes),” Amy Egan, a deputy director for safety at the agency’s Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology.

But it is Lipitor’s title of best-selling prescription drug of all time that makes these cases in the US so news worthy. To date more than $130 billion has been raised by the sale of this drug since it was first released to the market in 1996.