Pharmaceutical Lawsuits

Litigation over prescription medicines usually turns on one question: what did the manufacturer know, and what did the label tell patients and prescribers? In the United States, the answer is documented in public records: FDA approval documents, label revisions, Drug Safety Communications, and, when consensus evidence changes, withdrawals from the market.

Our articles in this section work from those records and from the court dockets. They distinguish three things readers frequently conflate:

1. A regulatory action such as a new warning or a withdrawal. These are dated, published decisions by the FDA. They do not establish that the medicine caused any individual patient’s injury.
2. Allegations in filed complaints. A complaint is one side’s account. Until a court rules or the parties settle, it remains an allegation.
3. Court outcomes. Verdicts, approved settlements and rulings on preemption or causation are matters of record; most pharmaceutical claims end in settlement rather than trial.

Current articles

• Depo-Provera and meningioma claims explains the 2024 label change and the consolidated federal proceedings that followed.
• Oxbryta (voxelotor) and the 2024 withdrawal explains what the manufacturer and regulators said when the sickle-cell medicine left the market, and what has been filed since.

Related sections: medical device litigation for devices rather than medicines, and product liability for non-pharmaceutical consumer products.