After nearly a decade of mass tort litigation in New Jersey, Roche Holding AG won an appeals court ruling on Monday that could help the company stamp out claims that it didn’t adequately warn the public of side effects associated with its acne treatment Accutane.
An intermediate appeals court in Trenton reversed a 2010 verdict that Roche should pay $2.1 million to California resident Gillian Gaghan, who developed inflammatory bowel disease after using Accutane to treat her severe acne. Gaghan’s doctor had testified that he would have prescribed the drug even if Roche’s warning label had contained all the disclosures proposed by Gaghan’s lawyers. Based on that testimony, the appeals court decided the case in favor of Roche on the grounds that Gaghan couldn’t possibly show that the allegedly inadequate warnings caused her IBD.
