Pfizer settles Celebrex/Bextra litigation

Executive Summary

Pfizer agrees to pay $894 million to resolve more than 90 percent of personal injury claims involving its COX-2 inhibitors, as well as consumer fraud class action claims and litigation by state attorneys general. The figure is less than half of the firm's annual Celebrex sales, which totaled $2.3 billion in 2007. Plaintiffs lawyers who worked on the structure of the settlement said the parties sought to avoid the model Merck used in settling Vioxx litigation (1"The Pink Sheet," Nov. 12, 2007, p. 11). Scott Nealey, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, which served as plaintiffs' liaison counsel, said that the settlement was designed so that plaintiffs will get paid quickly