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Wyeth, which set aside more than $16 billion to resolve diet-drug lawsuits,
reached a confidential settlement with a Texas woman over the fen-phen drug
combination minutes before a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury ruled in
the company's favor. The settlement came after the jury reached its verdict
and about 10 minutes before the decision was read in state court. Jurors
deliberated roughly an hour before rejecting Vinessa Archer's claims that
Wyeth's Pondimin drug scarred her heart valves. The verdict was voided
because of the settlement. "Wyeth is in almost every one of these cases
prepared to make reasonable and modest settlement offers," Wyeth attorney
Mike Scott said. The jury in Archer's case was the sixth in Philadelphia in
the last three months to consider heart-valve claims against Wyeth's diet
drugs, which have been withdrawn. "This is closure for both sides," said
Archer's attorney, Rick Nemeroff. "No one is ever exactly thrilled. What we
wanted from the jury was education more than result."
09/29/04
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