The Indianapolis-based drugmaker will establish a fund, not to exceed $690 million, to settle an estimated 8,000 claims of damages. The settlement came after only five plaintiffs had given depositions in the mass litigation, and before any substantive depositions had been taken from Lilly executives or scientists. When finalized, the settlement will resolve about 75 percent of Zyprexa claims pending in the United States.

Zyprexa is the brand name for olanzapine. It is considered an “atypical” antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1996, it is thought that Zyprexa works by decreasing the effects of two chemical messengers in the brain, serotonin and dopamine.

Most of the lawsuits claim that before September 2003, the information on Zyprexa labels did not adequately warn patients that taking the drug might put them at risk of developing hyperglycemia and diabetes. Hyperglycemia is a condition in which the blood has elevated sugar levels, typical in diabetics. Lilly changed its labels in September 2003. The agreement announced June 9 involves only plaintiffs who argued that they developed diabetes-related conditions from using Zyprexa. Lilly has said it is prepared to continue its “vigorous defense” of the drug in the remaining cases.
The $690 million deal is the largest settlement Lilly has undertaken of product liability claims against any of its drugs. The company’s previous No. 1 drug, the antidepressant Prozac, has been the subject of hundreds of lawsuits since it came on the market in 1988. The company has secretly settled dozens of those lawsuits, with the collective payouts estimated to run in the tens of millions of dollars, according to published reports.

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