Paxil Suits Cost Glaxo $1 Billion

The antidepressant Paxil continues to cost its owner GlaxoSmithKline Plc.

The British drug maker paid almost $1 billion in settlements related to lawsuits since introducing Paxil in the 1990s, Bloomberg News reports.

The report doesn't estimate how much more money the company could pay out, but clearly this isn't the end of the Paxil saga. In October, Glaxo was ordered by a Pennsylvania jury to pay $2.5 million for claims that the drug caused birth defects. The trial was the first of more than 600. Glaxo has set aside about $3 billion to pay legal expenses.

The birth defect claims are the second wave of litigation related to this drug. Earlier lawsuits linked Paxil to suicides. At least $390 million of that $1 billion estimate is related to suicide cases, Bloomberg says.

A former Glaxo exec testified in the most recent court case that company officials tried to bury evidence that the drug had risks for birth defects. That's not good for your defense.

It's been a big year for drug company legal settlements, overall. Pfizer Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co. paid record sums ($2.3 billion and $1.4 billion) after the government went after them for the way they promoted their drugs for unapproved uses.

Pfizer faces thousands of additional lawsuits over Premarin and other hormone therapies. Last month, the company was ordered to pay more than $100 million in punitive damages to two women who claimed Pfizer hormone therapies caused breast cancer.