Ongoing litigation involving allegations that Merck's osteoporosis bisphosphonate drug Foxamax caused thousands of individuals to develop osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) got more complicated this week.
On September 5, U.S. District Judge John Keenan, who is overseeing consolidated litigation against Merck in this case, ordered hundreds of cases to be dispersed back for trial to the courts in which they were originally filed, according to a report from Reuters.
The decision could be potentially costly for Merck, Reuters noted, because it requires that 200 cases per month be sent back to those courts.
Currently, 5,075 lawsuits are pending nationally in federal and state courts related to Fosamax. Approximately 1,000 of these suits were consolidated before Keenan in 2006. The judge then conducted a series of bellwether trials to assess trends and outcomes in similar cases, according to Reuters. Merck lost two of the bellwether trials.
