AbbVie must pay $150 million to an Oregon man who accused the pharmaceutical company of misrepresenting the safety risks of its AndroGel drug to treat low testosterone, a federal jury decided Monday in Chicago.
Jesse Mitchell blamed the drug for a heart attack he had in 2012 after taking AndroGel for four years. The jury awarded Mitchell $150 million in punitive damages, meant to punish the company, but did not award him damages to compensate him for any personal losses.
The jury, however, found in favor of AbbVie on allegations that AndroGel lacked adequate warnings or instructions, making it unreasonably dangerous, as well as allegations that the company was negligent.
“We expect the punitive damage award will not stand,” AbbVie spokeswoman Adelle Infante said in an email.
Mitchell’s case, filed in 2014, was the first to go to trial over AndroGel. Thousands of similar lawsuits have been filed against AbbVie.
AbbVie sold about $675 million worth of AndroGel last year.
The company had argued in court documents that Mitchell had other risk factors that could have caused his heart attack, such as a history of smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, among other things.
But Troy Rafferty, an attorney for Mitchell, called the $150 million decision “a powerful message that the jury sent to AbbVie about the way they marketed and promoted this drug.”
Mitchell, who used AndroGel from 2008 to 2012, alleged that AbbVie knew or should have known the drug could cause cardiovascular disease, strokes and other serious injuries, but failed to adequately warn consumers and doctors. He was 49 at the time of his heart attack.
He took the drug amid an advertising campaign warning consumers about “low T.”
The company marketed the drug to consumers despite its “dangerous side effects” even though there were “safer alternative methods of treating loss of energy, libido erectile dysfunction, depression, loss of muscle mass and other conditions AndroGel’s advertising claims are caused by low testosterone,” Mitchell alleged in court documents.
Abbott Laboratories was also named in the lawsuit, but AbbVie spun off from Abbott in 2013, taking with it U.S. commercial rights and responsibilities for the drug.
AbbVie’s stock fell by about 1 percent Monday.
