McDermott Plays Role in Important Fen-Phen Victory
BOSTON — McDermott Will & Emery served as lead counsel on behalf of phentermine manufacturer defendants at a two-day evidentiary hearing resulting in an important victory in the fen-phen diet drug litigation. On June 28, 2000, the Philadelphia federal judge who presides over pretrial proceedings in all of the federal court litigation involving the diet drugs granted the motion of the manufacturers of phentermine to exclude plaintiffs' expert testimony that phentermine contributes to cardiovascular disease. Because the court's 35-page decision excludes this "scientifically unreliable" testimony from all federal court cases, this ruling potentially affects hundreds of diet drug cases that are pending in the federal courts.
This significant victory followed extensive expert discovery, briefing and a two-day evidentiary hearing at which preeminent experts in cardiology, pulmonology, epidemiology and pharmacology testified for the phentermine manufacturers. McDermott, Will & Emery partner Peter L. Resnik, who heads the firm's pharmaceutical product liability practice, serves as co-lead national counsel for phentermine defendants in all of the diet drug litigation.
"Fen-phen," popularly prescribed in the early and mid 1990s to aid in weight loss, is the combination of two drugs -- fenfluramine and phentermine. Fenfluramine was taken off of the market in 1997 after reports suggested that it increased the risk of valvular heart disease and pulmonary hypertension. Since then, a number of lawsuits have been filed against the manufacturers of both fenfluramine and phentermine. Phentermine has been on the market since 1959 and remains on the market today as a short-term treatment of exogenous obesity.
