Roche Pulls Accutane Off the Market

Roche notified the FDA today that it was pulling Acctane (an acne medicine) off the market.  The company faces at least $33 million damage award from jury trials and faces around 5,000 personal injury claims.  Michael Hook (an FSU grad who graciously spoke to my complex litigation class this past spring about the litigation) won a $10.5 million claim against Roche in April of 2008 is quoted as saying, “We’ve been winning the cases with the drug still on the market, but this move certainly isn’t going to hurt us going forward.”  Roche has already taken Accutane off the market in roughly 11 other countries.  For more information, here’s a link to Bloomberg’s report and to the Associated Press article.