The Tokyo High Court on Nov. 15 overturned a lower court ruling that had ordered the government and the Japanese unit of the British drugmaker AstraZeneca PLC to pay compensation to bereaved family members of two people who died allegedly because of a side effect caused by the lung cancer drug Iressa. The plaintiffs appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court two days later.
The high court appeared in a rush to make its ruling in the trial, which started in September. It held only two hearings and it took only three weeks to reach a decision after the conclusion of hearings. While it reviewed the same material presented in the first trial, the high court reached the opposite conclusion. One wonders whether it fully examined the case.
The focal point of the trial was whether instructions attached to the drug sufficiently warned against the possibility of its side effects. The lawsuit was filed by four bereaved family members of three dead lung cancer patients. They called on the government and AstraZeneca K.K., the Osaka-based importer of the drug, to pay a total of ¥77 million in compensation.