News

Birmingham-area man wins verdict against drugmaker over Accutane

February 17, 2010, 5:30AM

A Birmingham-area man won a $25.16 million verdict Tuesday against a Swiss drugmaker, after claiming its acne medicine led to inflammatory bowel disease.

Andrew McCarrell, 38, won the verdict against Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG after a retrial in state court in New Jersey, where a company unit that produced the drug Accutane is based. An appeals court ordered the new trial after overturning a $2.62 million award McCarrell won in May 2007.

McCarrell is a computer technician who has lived in the Birmingham area 13 to 15 years. He testified he got sick after taking Accutane in 1995. He needed five surgeries, including one to remove his colon.

"I never thought it would be like this," McCarrell said. "Never in my wildest dreams."

With the Tuesday award, six former Accutane users have won verdicts worth $56 million. All claimed Roche failed to warn of the drug's risks. Roche stopped selling Accutane last year, citing competition from generic formulations and legal costs from defending personal injury suits. Roche faces almost 1,000 other cases.

McCarrell had played small-college football in the Midwest and "was a vibrant healthy guy until he started taking this drug," said his lawyer, Michael Hook of Pensacola. "A year after he started taking it, he had his colon removed."

McCarrell goes to the bathroom 10 to 20 times a day and "suffers from massive gastrointestinal upset," Hook said. "Imagine going though that every day. He and his wife are living day by day."

Hook said Roche had internal documents that said Accutane caused inflammatory bowel disease and did not tell anyone. "The evidence is overwhelming," he said.

In a statement, the company said it would appeal, as it has in all the other cases.

"Our sympathies remain with Andrew McCarrell over his disease," Roche said in a statement. "Both the finding and the amount of damages were unsupported by the evidence. Roche acted appropriately in providing information about Accutane, including a direct warning about inflammatory bowel disease, to the medical, scientific and regulatory communities."

Sheldon J. Schlesinger, P.A. represents clients throughout the state of Florida including the cities of Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Carol City, Cooper City, Coral Gables, Coral Springs, Davie, Deerfield Beach, Delray Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Hialeah, Hollywood, Jupiter, Lake Worth, Miramar, Miami, Oakland Park, Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Palm Springs, Pompano Beach, and Rivera Beach

Broward County • Miami-Dade County • Palm Beach County