Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll Announce Class Action Lawsuit Against Glaxo Wellcome PLC & Glaxo Wellcome Inc.

Business Editors & Legal Writers

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 21, 2000

On Friday, December 15, 2000, Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll, Peirce Raimond & Coulter and Levin, Fishbein, Sedran & Berman filed a class action against Glaxo Wellcome, PLC and Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. in Brooke County, West Virginia on behalf of all purchasers nationwide of the drug Lotronex.

Lotronex (the brand name for the drug alosetron) was introduced into the United States market in February 2000. Within six months of the drug's launch in the United States, approximately 450,000 prescriptions had been written and filled. The suit, Gill, et al. v. Glaxo Wellcome, PLC, et al. alleges that the defendants made and marketed Lotronex as safe and effective in the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, but failed to alert consumers to studies which called into question the drug's efficacy and failed to warn consumers of the risk of serious and life-threatening side effects, such as ischemic colitis. The drug was withdrawn from the market on November 28, 2000 at the request of the Food and Drug Administration.

Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll has significant experience in prosecuting plaintiffs' lawsuits involving threats to public safety, product defects and consumer fraud. The firm successfully represented Native Alaskans affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. In 1996, focusing the attention of the nation on racism in corporate America, Cohen Milstein negotiated a historical $176 million racial bias settlement from Texaco, Inc. In Friedman v. Union Bank of Switzerland, et al., the firm represented a class of victims of the Holocaust whose assets were wrongfully retained by private Swiss banks during or after World War II, and the firm currently is representing the Republic of Poland, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Ukraine and the Russian Federation, on issues of slave and forced labor for both Jewish and non-Jewish victims arising out Nazi persecution during World War II. Moreover, Mr. Hausfeld and his firm are playing a leadership role in representing various municipalities around the country against handgun manufacturers and distributors to recoup the costs borne by those municipalities in addressing the consequences of handgun violence. Cohen Milstein also is on the Plaintiffs' Management Committee in the fen-phen diet drug litigation and participated in negotiating the $4 billion settlement with the manufacturers of the diet drugs. In addition, the firm has represented and continues to represent home purchasers whose homes were clad with defective hardboard siding and defective synthetic stucco systems. The firm has offices in Washington, D.C., and Seattle and is active in major litigation pending in federal and state courts throughout the nation.