Jury Finds in Favor of AstraZeneca in Seroquel Diabetes Lawsuit

New Bruinswick, NJThe international pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has successfully defended itself in the first of many trials stemming from Seroquel diabetes claims.

span itemprop="image" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/ImageObject" style="display:block">The State Court Panel in New Brunswick spent one month determining if the manufacturer had properly warned doctors of the health risks linked to use of the antipsychotic medication. After a six-hour deliberation, the jury decided that Astra had provided sufficient warning to the doctor of Ted Baker, 61, who had taken the medication to deal with the post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered after serving in the Vietnam War. Astra was absolved of any liability in the man's recent diagnosis of diabetes.

While this is the drugmaker's first court win, Astra claims that nine previous cases prepared for trial have been dismissed, and roughly 2,600 more were abandoned by plaintiffs. Astra still faces around 26,000 claims over the drug.

"In case after case, jurors, judges and even plaintiffs' lawyers themselves have found that plaintiffs simply cannot show through any accepted scientific method that AstraZeneca is responsible for their alleged injuries," Astra wrote on its website. "In the cases that have been prepared for trial to date...the facts show that the plaintiffs either already had diabetes or had so many pre-existing risk factors that they were already at a significantly increased risk of diabetes before they first took Seroquel."