Pfizer's Bad Bet

With its takeover of Wyeth last month, Pfizer Inc. made a big bet on women's hormone therapies. Yesterday, the giant drug maker was ordered by a Philadelphia court to pay more than $100 million in punitive damages to two women who claim Pfizer's products caused breast cancer.

The payout, which Pfizer says it will challenge, is significant and not just in size. Wyeth faces thousands of lawsuits from women who used its once-popular Premarin and Prempro treatments for menopausal symptoms.

A 2002 U.S. government study said taking the drugs increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease and stroke. Doctors warned women to stop taking the drugs. Yet the Food and Drug Administration didn't yank the products from the market. Another Pfizer company that makes the hormone drug Prevera, Upjohn, was a co-defendant in one of the Philadelphia cases.

In total, Pfizer has been ordered to pay $165 million in punitive damages in several suits, Bloomberg News reports.

The most recent cases involved a woman in Decatur, Illinois, who was awarded $28 million Monday, and a woman from Peoria, Illinois, who got $75 million last month. The $75 million award had been sealed until yesterday.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg as Wyeth faces lawsuits from more than 10,000 additional women who also claim that Wyeth's drugs gave them breast cancer," lawyers for the women say in a statement.