Abbott must pay $495 million in premature infant formula trial, jury finds

By Brendan Pierson and Dietrich Knauth

(Reuters) -A jury on Friday found that Abbott Laboratories' specialized formula for premature infants caused an Illinois girl to develop a dangerous bowel disease, ordering the healthcare company to pay $495 million in damages.

The verdict in St. Louis, Missouri state court comes in the first trial against the company out of hundreds of similar claims over the formula pending in courts around the country, which Reuters viewed via Courtroom View Network.

Illinois resident Margo Gill, who brought the case against Abbott, alleged that the company failed to warn that its formula could cause a potentially deadly disease called necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in premature babies. The jury awarded her $95 million in compensatory damages and $400 million in punitive damages.

The jury verdict was not unanimous, and was supported by 9 of the 12 jurors in the case. To return a verdict in a civil case in Missouri, three-fourths of jurors must agree.

"Companies need to be honest about their products, about the good and the bad," Gill's attorney, Jack Garvey, said. "When there is a risk of using a baby formula for preterm infants, parents have a right to know what the problems are."

Abbott said it strongly disagrees with the verdict and would try to have it overturned.

Abbott spokesman Scott Stoffel said that specialized formulas and fortifiers, like the one in this case, are among the only available options to feed premature infants.

"Verdicts like these, where the science and opinions of healthcare professionals who spend their lives treating these babies are ignored, make it difficult to continue supplying these products indefinitely," Stoffel said.

NEC, which causes the death of bowel tissue, mostly affects premature newborns and has a fatality rate of between 15% and 40%. Gill's child, Robynn Davis, who developed NEC after being given Abbott premature infant formula while in a neonatal intensive care unit in 2021, survived, but suffered irreversible neurological damage because of her illness and will require long-term care. Lawyers for Abbott, which makes Similac brand formula, argued during the trial that Robynn's long-term injuries were caused by trauma at birth that deprived her brain of oxygen. They said that, while mother's milk lowers the risk of NEC, specialized formula is sometimes necessary and life-saving for premature babies. Close to 1,000 lawsuits have been filed against Abbott, Enfamil formula maker Reckitt Benckiser or both in federal or state courts. More than 500 are centralized in an Illinois federal court, with others pending in Illinois, Missouri and Pennsylvania. The lawsuits claim that the companies did not warn doctors that infants receiving formula have a greater risk of NEC compared to infants who are breast-fed or given donor milk or human milk-derived formula. Reckitt, like Abbott, has denied the claims.

Like all of the lawsuits over NEC, Friday's case involves cow's milk-based formula and products for fortifying mother's milk that are specially made for infants in hospital settings, not ordinary formula available to consumers in stores. The first lawsuit to go to trial, against Reckitt in Illinois, ended with a $60 million jury verdict in March. Reckitt is appealing that verdict and has argued that the plaintiff's case relied on unsound expert testimony. The litigation has concerned some investors. Reckitt's share price fell about 15% after the March verdict and has not fully recovered. The NEC Society, a patient-led non-profit organization working to combat the disease, has criticized the lawsuits, saying that "feeding decisions should be made at patients' bedsides, not in courtrooms." The NEC lawsuits are separate from ongoing litigation against Abbott over the shutdown of its Sturgis, Michigan, plant and subsequent recall of batches of baby formula for possible contamination, which contributed to a nationwide formula shortage in 2022. There have been no trials in those cases.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson and Dietrich Knauth in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Diane Craft and Sandra Maler)