Pfizer settles Nigerian drug case out of court - April 06, 2009
Pfizer has apparently agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit over a drug trial it ran in Nigeria.
According to media reports, lawyers for the pharma giant and Nigeria’s Kano state agreed an out of court settlement over the trial of a meningitis drug, which the state alleges killed 11 children and left others seriously injured. Pfizer has denied its product caused the deaths (Pharma Times).
Reuters says sources told it last Wednesday that the settlement would come to near $75 million, with $30 million going to Kano state, $35 million to victims and $10 million going on legal fees.
The Independent presents some of the back story in its coverage:
A divorce case was all that passed for excitement at Richard P Altschuler's "kinda small" lawyer's office in West Haven, Connecticut, when the phone rang nine years ago. On the other end of the line, a world away in the heat of Nigeria, was Etigwe Uwo, a young lawyer with "an incredible story about Pfizer". The Lagos attorney was going to take on the largest pharmaceutical company in the world in an unprecedented class action pitting African parents against an American corporate giant. And he needed help.
Bloomberg says Nigeria’s federal government also sued Pfizer for $7 billion in 2007, although the BBC says this case could be dropped as a result of the new settlement.
