Bayer, Sandoz and Viatris condemned for the first time in civilian – Liberation

The symbol is strong. For the first time, the Bayer, Sandoz and Viatris laboratories were condemned to civilians as part of a procedure Around the drug Androcur. A 55 -year -old woman with meningiomas, brain tumors caused by taking this hormonal treatment and her generics for twenty years, obtained more than 300,000 euros in compensation for the three pharmaceutical giants on Monday, June 2 before the Civil Court of Poitiers, who declared them guilty of « Information lack ».

« The court declares the SAS Bayer Healthcare, the SAS Sandoz, the SAS Viatris Health (…) responsible for the damage suffered » By the patient, write the judges in their decision, sanctioning a lack of information on the risks of the drug.

Laboratories (97 %), as well as the doctor (2 %) and the victim pharmacist (1 %), are sentenced to joined him jointly and severally about 325,000 euros, including 20,000 for moral damage and 305,000 for loss of luck. This compensation is accompanied by a partial provisional execution, for laboratories, up to 25 %. In other words, the judgment can be executed immediately, despite potential recourse.

The Bayer group, « Disagreeing the court’s decision » Who « Increases in Rebours », According to him, expert reports having dismissed « Any lack or lack of information » On the Androcur, announced that he would appeal.

The complainant was on Androcur – then her generics – between 1991 and 2013 to treat a syndrome of polycystic ovaries, a hormonal condition which affects approximately 6 % of women of childcare age, According to the World Health Organization (WHO). The 50 -year -old has since developed several meningiomas. These non -cancerous tumors of membranes surrounding the brain can cause important neurological handicaps. In her case, the patient suffers from visual disorders and memory to date, as well as significant fatigue.

Despite these serious consequences, it ensures that it has never been notified of the risks of treatment. Even if a scientific article mentioned, as early as 2008, A link between the molecule present in the Androcur – Cyproterone acetate – and the appearance of meningiomas.

Damage caused by these meningiomas, diagnosed in 2013, which are indeed « The result of drug -based drug treatments that she continued to take  » Until this date, « In particular from 2008 », According to the judges of the Poitiers court.

A significant decision, which opens the way to « A multiplication of procedures » compensation, according to Me Romain Sintès, who represents the complainant. For her part, Me Charles Joseph-Oudin, council of the Amavea victims association, welcomes a decision « Essential » :: « We are in the process of constituting 750 files », of which « A hundred are being expertise or have been the subject of first requests and first legal proceedings. »

Criminal complaints have also been filed in Paris, according to the lawyer, and a procedure initiated before the administrative court of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis) aims to engage the responsibility of the State.

The Androcur was prescribed, from 1980, to many women as a contraceptive pill, to deal with acne and hair problems, or to relieve the symptoms of endometriosis, an inflammatory disease that affects one in ten menstruated people.

After the 2008 alert, the risk of meningioma was introduced into the notice in 2011 by the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM)before its scientific confirmation, in a report submitted in 2018 to the Ministry of Health, made prescriptions fall.

During the hearing held in April, Bayer had rejected the fault on the ANSM, which he accused of having been slow to react. The laboratory also attacked the manufacturers of the generics, the patient having taken Androcur until 2004 before continuing her treatment with the products of Sandoz and Viatris until 2013.

For the judges, Bayer has nevertheless failed in his duty to inform patients, since the company informed of the change of notice of the Androcur that the specialist doctors. General practitioners and pharmacists, they were not put in the loop. Ditto for Viatris and Sandoz, who only changed the notice of their generics after 2013, the date of diagnosis of the complainant’s meningiomas.

« Despite what the laboratories told us, they had the means to communicate on particularly serious side effects, disabling and above all irreversible, which they have known since 2008, », point Me Sintès, while her client salutes to AFP a « Big victory ». With this procedure, she expected above all that the responsibilities of the laboratories were highlighted, more than those of her doctor and her pharmacist that she did not want to see « (Pay) for them ». A fight she is « More than ever ready » to be continued on appeal.