Jury awards $75M in punitive damages to Illinois woman in Prempro cancer case

$75M verdict unsealed in Prempro-cancer case

PHILADELPHIA — A jury in Philadelphia has ordered Wyeth Pharmaceuticals to pay a woman $75 million in punitive damages after finding a link between her breast cancer and a hormone-replacement drug.

That’s according to an attorney for the woman, Connie Barton.

Last month, the jury awarded Barton $3.75 million in compensatory damages and found Wyeth willfully hid evidence of a cancer link.

The punitive award for Barton, of Peoria, Ill., had been sealed until Monday because of another Prempro case under way in the same courthouse.

A spokesman for Pfizer Inc., which recently acquired Wyeth, says the company will challenge the Barton verdict, and another verdict also announced Monday.

Barton’s case is one of a handful of Prempro lawsuits to go to trial out of several thousand filed across the country.