AstraZeneca wins Seroquel case

WILIMINGTON, Del. A state judge in New Jersey has ruled in favor of AstraZeneca in the case of a Louisiana resident who claimed to have developed diabetes from using one of its drugs, the drug maker announced Thursday.

The case, Baker v. AstraZeneca, was one of many involving patients who alleged use of the bipolar disorder and depression drug Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate) caused their disease. It was one of more than 2,600 cases involving patients using the drug and the first to go to trial, but the previous nine prepared for trial were dismissed by state and federal judges, and the others were abandoned by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, AstraZeneca said.

The drug maker said that jurors, judges and plaintiffs’ lawyers found that the plaintiffs couldn’t show through scientific methods that they developed diabetes as a result of using Seroquel.