Wyeth Fights Merger of Prempro Lawsuits ; Florida Women Seek Paid Monitoring for Complications

MIAMI – New Jersey-based Wyeth Inc. wants a court to reverse a decision consolidating lawsuits by Florida women who are demanding company-paid monitoring for complications linked to the hormone- replacement drug Prempro.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Lawrence Schwartz approved the class action last month covering an estimated 300,000 Floridians who took Prempro for at least six months before health warnings were added to packages in January 2003. Wyeth decided to appeal before a 30-day stay of his order expired.

A Florida lawsuit was one of the first to be filed after the 2002 release of the critical Women’s Health Initiative study and is the first nationally to get class-action clearance among about 20 lawsuits seeking it.

The study, cut short because of its startling findings, said Prempro raised the risk of heart attack, stroke, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease and embolisms.

Medical researchers concluded the following year that hormone replacement pills should not be taken for any reason other than as brief treatment to help women through the worst symptoms of menopause.

Wyeth is challenging the validity and the results of the 2002 study and maintains the study does not support the women’s request for diagnostic work ranging from periodic physical examinations and biopsies to MRI and CT scans.

“No one has recommended special medical screening for Prempro users, so we will continue to defend this matter vigorously,” Wyeth Pharmaceuticals spokesman Douglas Petkus said Tuesday.

The suit claims that more than 9,000 of the 300,000 Florida women who took Prempro for at least six months will develop preventable diseases in the next 10 years because of the drug, which has been marketed since 1994.

Before the study was released, the estrogen-progestin pills were being sold to 6 million American women, or 12 percent of postmenopausal women, “as a way to keep you feminine forever,” said Steven Hunter, one of the attorneys for the Florida women.

Former supermodel Lauren Hutton was Wyeth’s celebrity spokeswoman as demand for the drug turned on issues of sexuality, youth, beauty and lifestyle for aging American women.

The medication was thought to reduce heart disease and osteoporosis, but the Women’s Health Initiative study found greater heart disease and concluded the overall risks outweighed the benefits.

Prescriptions fell 76 percent for Prempro and 47 percent for Wyeth’s estrogen drug Premarin from the report’s findings to the company’s 2003 annual report.