The federal judge presiding over the Zoloft multidistrict litigation has granted Pfizer’s request to toss the MDL on the grounds that the plaintiffs couldn’t muster an expert to illustrate a link between the drug and birth defects.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania effectively ended the MDL—pending any appeals to the Third Circuit—which has been going on for over three years. According to Rufe’s order, the clerk was instructed to close all but 23 of the more than 300 remaining cases, which were against defendants other than Pfizer and co-defendant Wolters Kluwer Health.
