Coloplast Settles Vaginal Mesh Lawsuits

According to confidential sources and a news report in Bloomberg, Coloplast A/S, has agreed to pay about $16 million to settle its transvaginal mesh lawsuits. Injured women who were implanted with the Danish mesh manufacturer’s vaginal-mesh inserts had filed personal injury claims against the company.

The Denmark-based Coloplast agreed in January to resolve about 400 suits over the plastic mesh implants which are designed to support internal organs. The settlement is said to provide an average payment of about $40,000 for each claimant.

Federal Case Consolidation

Many of the cases against Coloplast and other vaginal mesh implant makers in federal courts around the U.S. have been consolidated before U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin in Charleston, West Virginia, for pre-trial discovery.

Judge Goodwin is currently overseeing eight different federal multidistrict litigations (MDLs), which have been centralized in the Southern District of West Virginia for product liability lawsuits brought against different manufacturers of vaginal mesh and bladder sling products, including Boston Scientific, Ethicon, American Medical Systems (AMS), C.R. Bard, Coloplast, Cook Medical and Neomedic.

According to the latest case list issued by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigations, Judge Goodwin is currently presiding over 7,617 Boston Scientific mesh, 12,992 Ethicon mesh, 13,292 American Medical Systems (AMS) mesh, 6,172 Bard Avaulta mesh, 1,155 Coloplast mesh, 152 Cook Medical mesh, and 21 Neomedic mesh lawsuits.

Women experienced complications from bladder sling and vaginal mesh products that were surgically implanted transvaginally for repair of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) or female stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Lawsuits allege that the surgical mesh was defectively designed and unreasonably dangerous, carrying a risk of the mesh eroding through the vagina, and other debilitating injuries.

Settlement Talks at Advanced Stage

Bard, Endo and Boston Scientific are in discussions about settling vaginal-mesh lawsuits as part of a global settlement of mesh cases.

Coloplast has declined to seek a blanket settlement of cases over the company’s implants and instead are settling inventories of cases collected by individual plaintiffs’ lawyers. Coloplast has been sued over implants including the Novasilk-Synthetic Flat Mesh System and the Aris-Transobturator lines.

The consolidated cases are In Re: Coloplast Corp Pelvic Support System Products Liability Litigation, 12-md-2387, U.S. District Court, Southern District of West Virginia (Charleston).