PHILADELPHIA — A jury in Philadelphia has ordered Wyeth Pharmaceuticals to pay a woman $75 million in punitive damages after finding a link between her breast cancer and a hormone-replacement drug. That’s according to an attorney for the woman, Connie Barton. Last month, the jury awarded Barton $3.75 million in compensatory damages and found Wyeth wilfully hid evidence of a cancer link. The punitive award for Barton, of Peoria, Illinois, had been sealed until Monday because of another Prempro case under way in the same courthouse. A spokesman for Pfizer Inc., which recently acquired Wyeth, says the company will challenge the Barton verdict, and another verdict also announced Monday. Barton’s case is one of a handful of Prempro lawsuits to go to trial out of several thousand filed across America.
