Jury Awards Woman $10.5 Million
In Accutane Suit

April 22, 2008 6:48 p.m.
WallStreetJournal

A New Jersey state-court jury awarded a 24-year-old woman $10.5 million in a case involving acne medication Accutane, one of 425 cases against Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc. alleging that the drug causes inflammatory-bowel disease.

Plaintiffs have won all three cases that have gone to trial thus far.

Kamie Kendall, a Utah hairdresser, started taking Accutane at age 12, according to David Buchanan, one of her lawyers. She was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at the age of 14, and in 2006 she had her colon removed. As a result, Mr. Buchanan says, Ms. Kendall suffers from debilitating diarrhea.

The jury awarded $10.5 million of compensatory damages, plus $78,500 for medical expenses. The judge presiding over case ruled there was insufficient evidence to allow the jury to consider punitive damages or consumer fraud.

The first case alleging that Accutane causes inflammatory-bowel disease went to trial in May 2007 and resulted in a $2.6 million award to an Alabama plaintiff. In a second case in October, a jury awarded a Florida plaintiff $7 million.

A Hoffman-LaRoche spokesman said the Nutley, N.J., company plans to appeal all three verdicts.

Since it was introduced in 1982, Accutane has been taken by roughly 13 million people in the U.S. A company spokesman said in a statement that "the Accutane labeling has contained a warning about IBD for more than 20 years."

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