-Pharmalot

11/28/2008- A jury in an Illinois state court awarded the money to the family of Janice DiCosolo, 38, who died in February 2004, because the patch she was wearing delivered a fatal dose of the fentanyl narcotice, which is the main ingredient in Duragesic, Bloomberg News reports.

This if J&J’s fourth loss in as many trials over the past two years and it took the jury less than two days to deliberate. The patch, by the way, is made by Alza and distributed by Janssen Pharmaceutica, and generated $1.16 billion in sales last year for J&J, making Duragesic one of its best-selling products, the news service writes.

“We disagree with the jury’s verdict,” a J&J spokesman writes Bloomberg. “We are considering our options for an appeal.”

The lawsuit was filed by DiCosolo’s husband, John, 45, and the couple had three children. The trial began Oct. 29, one day after a jury in Sanford, Florida, awarded more than $13 million to the family of Susan Hodgemire, a 34-year-old mother of five who died after using a Duragesic patch in 2002.

DiCosolo’s husband, a Cicero, Illinois police sergeant, wasn’t in the courtroom when the verdict was read. His lawyer, John Cushing, said his client was relieved to have had the opportunity to tell his wife’s story. “He didn’t do this for money,” Cushing tells Bloomberg.

Defense lawyers, citing an autopsy, said DiCosolo died from the interaction of at least five drugs, including fentanyl, found in her system by a Cook County coroner, Lawrence Cogan.

Fentanyl is a painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine, plaintiffs’ lawyers said at trial. The patches, prescribed for people combating chronic pain, are to be worn for 72 hours and then discarded. Janice DiCosolo was found wearing one when she died. Each patch contains enough fentanyl to kill 10 men weighing 300 pounds each, according to DiCosolo’s lawyer.

Janssen recalled one lot of Duragesic patches in February 2004, a day after DiCosolo died, because of improper sealing of the adhesive backing of the devices, defense lawyer David Sudzus wrote in a court filing. The patch worn by DiCosolo was from that lot, he said.

“Both an independent expert and a company expert inspected the patch in question and concluded there was no defect,” the J&J spokesman wrote Bloomberg. “We believe that the cause of Ms. DiCosolo’s death was polypharmacy, a mix of multiple and potentially incompatible medications.”

Two jurors said the money they awarded John DiCosolo and the couple’s children was an average of higher and lower amounts suggested by members of the panel. “It was a common ground,” juror Bret Lessard, 22, of Tinley Park, Illinois, said of the panel’s initial verdict for $18 million. The jurors then subtracted 8 percent after finding DiCosolo at least partly liable for her death because of the other meds in her system. “You assume some risk with as many drugs as you’re taking,” Lessard said.

The jury forewoman, Peggy Rounsfull, 51, of Glenview, said, it was the fentanyl that appeared to have killed DiCosolo, who suffered from chronic neck pain. “There was no way of getting around the fact that she had too much fentanyl,” Rounsfull tells Bloomberg.

On Jan. 12, the J&J units face another trial in Chicago, this time in federal court.

Johnson & Johnson in July 2007 agreed to pay the family of a Florida man $2.5 million to resolve claims that Adam Hendelson, 28, had died after using one of the patches, three people with knowledge of the accord said. A jury had awarded the plaintiffs $5.5 million one month earlier.

In July 2006, a state court jury in Houston ordered Janssen and Alza in July to pay $772,500 to the family of a Texas woman who died after her patch leaked. The companies appealed that verdict.