• The largest federal expenditure for a coronavirus vaccine is going to Johnson & Johnson, the focus of more consumer lawsuits than the rest of the top 10 Big Pharma companies combined.
• J&J’s conduct so outraged a jury in 2019 that it awarded $8 billion to a single victim.
• Public trust in the eventual vaccine, particularly given the growing anti-vaxxer movement, will be critical to tamping down the deadly virus.

The Trump Administration signed a $456 million deal on March 27 with Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical subsidiary, Janssen. Forbes called it the largest reported contract on a coronavirus vaccine project to date.

Read on Forbes: The U.S. Just Signed A $450 Million Coronavirus Vaccine Contract With Johnson & Johnson

U.S. government modeling predicts that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die of coronavirus in the coming weeks.

“The ultimate game changer for this will be a vaccine,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a White House press conference on April 1.

View the source documents used to develop this chart. 

J&J leads the pack in revenue and lawsuits

Johnson & Johnson has ranked as the world’s largest pharmaceutical company by revenue for most of the past decade. The company reported $82 billion in revenue in 2019

J&J also acknowledged more consumer lawsuits than the other top ten companies combined, according to a compilation of 2016 year-end corporate reports.

Johnson & Johnson acknowledged 104,700 consumer product lawsuits vs. 96,891 in total against the other 9 companies in 2016. 

Jury verdicts reflect distrust of J&J and Big Pharma

The $8 billion in punitive damages against J&J, which was reduced later by a judge, was the largest verdict returned by a jury in 2019, according to the Insurance Journal. The case in a Pennsylvania court hinged on the company’s off-label marketing of the adult anti-psychotic drug Risperdal to children. Young boys who took the drug frequently grew large female breasts which could only be rectified through surgery.

At least 13,000 disfigured boys and young men are in line to sue J&J over Risperdal.

The company paid $2.2 billion to settle federal investigations into allegations of illegal off-label marketing and kickbacks to doctors and pharmacists. At the time in 2013, the settlement was one of the largest healthcare fraud settlements in U.S. history.

Read on Insurance Journal: J&J Hit with Year’s Largest Jury Award Over Marketing Risperdal Drug to Teens

The astonishing $8 billion verdict reflected a Gallup poll which found 60 percent of Americans don’t trust pharmaceutical companies which came in last a survey of industry reputation.

Read on Washington Post: Whopping Jury Award Against Johnson & Johnson Sends a Signal to Drug Industry

J&J products might be part of the problem.

Baby powder, mesh, addictive opioids

Jury verdicts against J&J are piling up and making headlines in other product liability and deceptive marketing lawsuits.

The company’s iconic Baby Powder led to another near-record verdict in 2018 when a Missouri jury awarded and a judge upheld $4.14 billion in punitive damages and $550 million in compensatory damages to 22 women and their families. They claimed the baby powder and other talc products were contaminated with asbestos which caused their ovarian cancer.

The company faced more than 12,000 talc lawsuits.

Read on The New York Times: Johnson & Johnson Loses Bid to Overturn a $4.7 Billion Baby Powder Verdict

J&J’s vaginal mesh product has been part of worldwide lawsuits which have cost manufacturers $8 billion. Governments around the world had to ban the product after so many women who used it reported constant pain, urinary and sexual complications and infertility.

Read on The New York Times: Johnson & Johnson Is Told to Pay $344 Million in Pelvic Mesh Suit

 

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