federal jury in Chicago awarded more than $140 million to a man who claimed that AbbVie Inc. misrepresented the risks of its testosterone replacement drug AndroGel, causing him to suffer a heart attack
Jeffrey Konrad, 56, of Tennessee, had used AndroGel for two months in 2010 when he had a heart attack.
The jury held AbbVie liable for negligence, intentional misrepresentation and misrepresentation by concealment, and awarded $140 million in punitive damages and $140,000 in compensatory damages.
The case is Jeffrey Konrad, et al. v. AbbVie, Inc., et al., No. 15-966, N.D. Ill. Konrad's attorneys are Christopher Seeger and David Buchanan of Seeger Weiss in New York and Matthew Teague of Beasley Allen Crow Methvin Portis & Miles in Montgomery, Ala.
In July 2017, a federal jury in another bellwether trial ordered AbbVie Inc. to pay $150 million in punitive damages to Jesse Mitchell of Oregon after finding the company liable for fraudulent misrepresentations about the safety of AndroGel.
Plaintiffs who charge that AndroGel can cause heart attacks, strokes and blood clots have filed 6,038 lawsuits in Testosterone Replacement Therapy Products Liability Litigation in MDL 2545, consolidated before US District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly in the Northern District of Illinois.
The FDA required AbbVie to add a warning about cardiovascular risk to AndroGel’s label in May 2015.
