NEW YORK, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) has agreed to a $185 million settlement in a class action securities fraud lawsuit.
Ending a five-year dispute, the settlement means "anyone taking a drug manufactured by BMS will now, for the first time, have instant access to crucial information about the drug, especially serious side effects," said Lead Plaintiff Counsel Labaton Sucharow in a statement.
According to the plaintiffs, the settlement is the second largest recovery against a pharmaceutical company and the biggest ever against a pharmaceutical company in a securities fraud case involving the development of a new drug.
The suit -- which was set to go to trial this year -- involved 200 securities fraud claims filed against BMS and others in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The plaintiffs claimed BMS made fraudulent claims about its potential hypertension drug Vanlev.
The company's public statements about the pipeline drug "arguably propped up its stock price and damaged class members even though it ultimately was never mass-produced to the public," plaintiff counsel said.
"As a union-owned bank, we were particularly concerned about the company's failure to disclose Vanlev's potential side-effects," stated Noel Beasley, with the LongView Collective Investment Fund of the Amalgamated Bank, the lead plaintiff in the case.
"We have seen time and again in recent cases such as Vioxx and Paxil the unnecessary health risks posed because a drug company left the public in the dark. Now, consumers will have access to crucial information about BMS drugs, especially any serious side effects."
The class action has been pending since April 2000 when BMS announced that it was withdrawing Vanlev's New Drug Application (NDA) from consideration by the Food and Drug Administration after a serious side effect known as angioedema became apparent during clinical trials.
