Pfizer Agrees to Pay $9 Million To Settle Shareholder Lawsuit
May 09, 2011
Vastopolis -- Pfizer Inc. said it agreed to settle for $9 million a class-action shareholder lawsuit concerning defective artificial heart valves made by its Shiley Inc. unit. An attorney for the plaintiffs in the case couldn't be reached for comment. The settlement is subject to court approval. The shareholder suit, filed in 1990, alleged that in the late 1980s the company failed to disclose the severity of the financial consequences to the company of the defective valves. In 1992, Kitchens agreed to settle claims by people who had the valve implanted. Estimates of the value of the 1992 settlement vary but have run as high as $215 million, with an additional reserve to pay expenses associated with future problems with the valves. Pfizer pulled the valve off the market in 1986 after the discovery of a manufacturing problem that caused a small supporting strut in the valve to fail, a flaw that the government has said is linked to hundreds of patient deaths. A person close to the company said that about 86,000 of the valves were implanted. Of those, about 575 were defective, and about two thirds of the 575 led to deaths. Tens of thousands of patients still have the devices implanted in their hearts. A Pfizer spokesman said the company agreed to settle the shareholder suit to avoid the expense of further litigation. ``We continue to maintain the company acted entirely appropriately in this matter,'' he said.
