The Merck laboratory, manufacturer of Levothyrox, was finally ordered by the Court of Cassation to compensate each plaintiff up to 1000 euros as part of a collective action.
- Levothyrox is taken every day by 2.7 million people in France.
- The objective of the formula change was to guarantee better stability over time of the levothyroxine hormone.
3.5 million euros. This is the sum that will ultimately have to be paid to consumers of Levothyrox by the Merck laboratory, definitively condemned this Wednesday, March 16 by the Court of Cassation.
Change of formula
In 2017, the Merck laboratory changed the formula of Levothyrox, a common drug against hypothyroidism. Following this change in formula, thousands of patients had reported adverse effects, such as headaches, insomnia, dizziness or even hair loss.
“When the composition of a drug changes and this change in formula is not explicitly indicated in the leaflet, the manufacturer and the operator can be blamed for a lack of information, which could cause moral damage”, explained the judges of the Court of Cassation. According to them, the Merck laboratory “had the legal obligation to inform the patients directly, in particular by the box and the instructions”.
“Moral prejudice”
The Merck laboratory had already been sentenced by the Lyon Court of Appeal for “moral prejudice” in the context of a collective action by 4,115 plaintiffs, brought by Toulouse lawyer Christophe Lèguevaques.
“It’s a very good victory for us, especially since we are pleased with the speed with which we obtained it”, indicated Christophe Lèguevaques to La Dépêche du Midi. “We completed the triptych “tribunal, court of appeal, court of cassation” in five years. This completely validates our approach, both in form and in substance, since for the first time in France, justice has recognized our initial analysis on the anxiety damage caused by the lack of information provided to patients by laboratories. in the medical field, he added.
The pharmaceutical company Merk kept the same line of defense throughout the long legal proceedings, explaining that the law prohibited it from directly informing patients of the change in formula.
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