Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $4.69 billion to women who argued in court that its talc products contained asbestos, causing them to develop ovarian cancer.
The St. Louis city court verdict is the sixth-largest product-defect award in U.S. history, ordering $4.14 billion in punitive damages on top of $550 million designed to compensate the 22 women and their families, reported Bloomberg.
Each plaintiff and her family members were awarded $25 million for their losses. The cases are part of more than 9,000 claims alleging that J&J’s talc products cause cancer.
J&J shares fell 0.7 percent to $126.83 Friday morning. The drugmaker plans to appeal the verdict.
Read the Bloomberg coverage