Crestor and Ortho Evra litigation groups pick up steam.

With the certification of two new litigation groups covering Crestor and Ortho Evra during the Winter Convention in Honolulu, ATLA continues to provide venues where members can network, distribute research, and obtain resources on pharmaceutical products and related litigation. Members of the Ortho Evra and the Crestor litigation groups will benefit from this coordinated method of sharing information, expert witness details, and case strategy planning. Both groups plan to run document libraries and list servers.

Crestor. The market for cholesterol-lowering drugs is huge. When it issued new cholesterol guidelines, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute estimated that 36 million Americans would benefit from taking a cholesterol-lowering drug. Crestor (rosuvastatin calcium), a prescription drug for treating high cholesterol, is manufactured by AstraZeneca and sold in over 60 countries. Crestor is known to cause a dangerous condition called rhabdomyolysis, which can lead to kidney failure and death.

The Crestor Litigation Group will educate the plaintiff bar about drug litigation through group meetings and seminars at ATLA events. For more information, contact Ted Wacker, interim chair, at Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson, [phone].

Ortho Evra. This transdermal birth-control patch is designed, developed, and manufactured by Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. It is the only approved contraceptive patch on the market, and more than 10 million prescriptions have been written since it was approved in 2001. Ortho-McNeil conducted little safety testing before approval, and the patch has been linked to an increased risk of thromboembolic events and related injuries, including stroke, heart attack, pulmonary embolism, deep-vein thrombosis, and blood clots. Treating many of these injuries requires extensive surgical intervention or anticoagulant therapy, or both.

The interim cochairs of the Ortho Evra Litigation Group are Lori Andrus and Jerrold Parker. For more information, call Andrus at Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, [phone].