J&J Ordered to Pay $5.7 Million in New Mesh Trial

Johnson & Johnson stands to pay $5.7 million after a California jury found it liable for damages linked to its TVT Abbrevo transvaginal mesh line.

Brian Buntz

The verdict marks the fourth time J&J's Ethicon has lost a trial related to its transvaginal mesh products. In all, more than 36,000 lawsuits have been filed against the company.

The Abbrevo product was cleared for sale by the FDA in 2010 to treat stress urinary incontinence.  

The plaintiff in the case, Coleen Perry, was awarded $700,000 in compensatory damages and a $5 million in punitive damages by the jury in the Bakersfield, CA-court. The plaintiff alleged that Ethicon's marketing of the product was malicious. The verdict was reached after more than three days of deliberation. The jury in the case found that Ethicon was liable for the device's defective design and for inaccurately characterizing the device's risks. Perry was implanted with the device in March 2011.

Perry's attorney, Peter de la Cerda, was quoted by Reuters as saying he hoped the verdict would send a "clear message to Ethicon" regarding  its "improper conduct in designing and marketing the Abbrevo."

Ethicon, however, won a recent trial related to its mesh in federal court in West Virginia, where another trial over its mesh products started on Monday. In that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the company's win from a year ago.

Last month, a woman in Florida brought a conspiracy charges against both Ethicon Inc. and the FDA, stating that the organizations were engaged in a huge cover up to hide the risks of vaginal mesh devices. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case was filed on February 4 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The products cited in that case include Ethicon's Gynecare TVT System and Prolift mesh kit. The case (No. 15-20442) also alleges that Ethicon was aware of the products' safety risk since 1999.

Ethicon plans on appealing the decision.

Brian Buntz is the editor-in-chief of MPMN and Qmed. Follow him on Twitter at @brian_buntz.

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