In one of the France’s biggest modern health scandals, a pharma company has been asked to pay hundreds of millions of euros in damages and fines for selling a diabetes drug and irresponsibly prescribing it as a diet pill with deadly consequences. The pharma company is also charged of hidding the drug''s hunger-suppressant side effects from medical regulators.
What’s the case?
The case is related to diabetes drug Mediator. Servier Laboratories has been accused of keeping the profits ahead of patients'' welfare and letting the drug to be widely and irresponsibly prescribed as a diet pill with deadly consequences, as per news agecncy AP.
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On its defence, the company argued that it was unaware about the drug''s dangers. A study in 2010 has indicated that Mediator was suspected with almost up to 2,000 deaths, with doctors linking it to heart and lung problems. The medicine has been present in the market for 33 years . Some survivors complained of severe health complications, requiring heart transplants and other medical procedures, after consuming the drug as a hunger suppressant.
What are charges against the company?
The Paris court blamed for hundreds of deaths has been founded guilty of manslaughter and other charges for selling a diabetes drug. The ruling covered a judicial marathon targeting Servier Laboratories and involving more than 6,500 plaintiffs. Servier argued that it didn''t know about the drug''s dangers.
The extensive trial went for almost 10 months in 2019 and 2020, and nearly 400 lawyers worked on the case. The court found Servier guilty of manslaughter, involuntary wounding and aggravated deception.
Along with the pharma company, the French medicines agency, was also found guilty and fined for manslaughter and unintentional injury. It was accused of failing to take adequate measures to protect patients and of being too close to Servier. Servier has been fined 2.7 million euros (nearly $3.2 million) apart from hundreds of millions to be paid in damages and shared among plaintiffs. It is to be noted that damages for aggravated deception touched nearly 159 million euros. And other hefty payments were awarded for the manslaughter and wounding charges.
The court also announced a suspended four-year prison sentence and fines to the only surviving Servier executive accused of involvement, Dr. Jean-Philippe Seta.
“The court clearly said there was deception and that Mediator was a hunger suppressant, an amphetamine, whose properties and, above all, toxicity were very deliberately hidden from consumers,” Frachon told French broadcaster BFM-TV. “This, very clearly, is white-collar crime.”
Infact, the company''s CEO and founder, Jacques Servier, was also indicted early in the legal process but passed away in 2014.
In lieu of suspicion rasied about the drug''s side effects from medical authorities in Switzerland, Spain and Italy, Servier withdrew the drug from those markets between 1997 and 2004. The company suspended sales in its main market in France in 2009. Mediator wasn''t sold in the U.S.