Post date: May 14, 2012 1:12:51 PM
Jacques Servier, the company's president, was investigated in Paris last year on suspicion of dishonest practices, deception over the drug's quality, and of falsely obtaining authorisation to sell it.
Mediator -- an anti-diabetic drug that was mostly prescribed by doctors as a weight-loss pill -- was sold to as many as 5 million people between 1976 and November 2009, when it was withdrawn, years after being pulled in Spain and Italy.
Trial begins for makers of the discredited anti-diabetic pill Mediator which officials say caused at least 500 deaths in France, and has sparked a public furore over drug regulation.
NANTERRE, FRANCE (MAY 14, 2012) (REUTERS) - The head and founder of France's Servier laboratories went on trial on Monday (May 14) in Nanterre, over the discredited 'Mediator' pill which officials say caused at least 500 deaths in France, and has sparked a public furore over drug regulation.
"I want him to be punished because I need to express my pain which is very serious, so I would like him to be punished because I am destroyed, I am destroyed. 50 years of love..." said Jean-Pierre Lafee, the husband of a victim.
State health inspectors have said the drug should have been withdrawn in France a decade earlier.
According to the French health ministry, at least 500 people died of heart valve trouble in France due to exposure to Mediator's active ingredient, benfluorex. Other estimates based on extrapolations put the death toll closer to 2,000.
Servier denies having misled authorities and patients. The company recognises 38 deaths linked to the drug, but says only four of these were caused directly by it.