Baxter loses first heparin lawsuit

Baxter International has lost the first lawsuit in its ongoing legal battle over the contaminated heparin scandal in 2007 and 2008.
 
A US court has awarded $625,000 to the estate of Steven Johansen, who died in December 2007 after taking a Baxter heparin product contaminated with over-sulphated chondroitin sulphate (OSCS).

The heparin active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) used in the drug was supplied by Scientific Protein Laboratories, which was a co-defendant with Baxter in this and other pending lawsuits at the Cook County court in Illinois, USA. Various other complaints have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL), which will be heard in the North Ohio District Court.

"The active pharmaceutical ingredient in the contaminated heparin received by Mr. Johansen and other Americans was obtained from Baxter/SPL's Chinese supplier, Changzhou SPL (a joint venture with SPL)," said the Nolan Law Group, which represented Mr. Johansen's family, in a statement.

"This crude heparin was referred to in the companies' own internal records as 'the cheap stuff'," it alleges. "The Court granted partial directed verdict in favour of Mr. Johansen holding that the product sold by Baxter and SPL was defective as a matter of law."