August 18, 2015 — Takeda Pharmaceuticals does not have enough claimants to move forward with a $2.37 billion settlement for thousands of Actos lawsuits.
The proposed settlement needed 95% agreement, but had only 75% by the August 12 deadline, according to The Japan Times.
The deadline has been extended to September 11, but the lack of participation is raising doubts about whether the deal will survive, Bloomberg reports.
Takeda is facing about 10,000 lawsuits from people who took Actos and developed bladder cancer. About 3,500 lawsuits are centralized in Louisiana federal court and another 4,500 at the state level in California, Pennsylvania, Illinois and West Virginia.
The settlement would have provided nearly $300,000 per case, with reductions for attorneys’ fees and cancer risk-factors like age, smoking history, and toxin exposure. Takeda continues to deny that Actos causes bladder cancer.
It is possible that plaintiffs are hoping for more money by taking their case to trial. Takeda has not fared well — the company has lost five trials since 2013, including a record-setting $9 billion jury verdict in Louisiana last year that was later reduced to $37 million. In February, another trial ended in a $2.3 million verdict against Takeda.
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