French pharma firm found guilty over medical scandal in which up to 2,000 died

A French court has fined one of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical firms €2.7m (£2.3m) after finding it guilty of deception and manslaughter over a pill linked to the deaths of up to 2,000 people.

In one of the biggest medical scandals in France, the privately owned laboratory Servier was accused of covering up the potentially fatal side-effects of the widely prescribed drug Mediator.

The former executive Jean-Philippe Seta was sentenced to a suspended jail sentence of four years. The French medicines agency, accused of failing to act quickly enough on warnings about the drug, was fined €303,000.

The amphetamine derivative was licensed as a diabetes treatment, but was widely prescribed as an appetite suppressant to help people lose weight. Its active chemical substance is known as Benfluorex.

As many as 5 million people took the drug between 1976 and November 2009 when it was withdrawn in France, long after it was banned in Spain and Italy. It was never authorised in the UK or US.

The French health minister estimated it had caused heart-valve damage killing at least 500 people, but other studies suggest the death toll may be nearer to 2,000. Thousands more have been left with debilitating cardiovascular problems. Servier has paid out millions in compensation.

“Despite knowing of the risks incurred for many years, … they [Servier] never took the necessary measures and thus were guilty of deceit,” said the president of the criminal court, Sylvie Daunis.

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Source: The Guardian, 29 March 2021