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Pfizer: FG extends suit to Nigerian company
Written by Mohammed Lawal Shuaibu
Tuesday, 23 October 2007

Article Index
Pfizer: FG extends suit to Nigerian company

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A Nigerian company that pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer claims should take legal responsibility for a drug test on children in Kano has been added to the list of people the government is suing.
A Federal high court sitting in Abuja yesterday granted the federal government’s application to extend its suit against Pfizer to include Kano-based Neimeth as respondents in the case. The company was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pfizer until after the drug trial in 1996 when it was sold.

Lawyers acting for Pfizer claimed in the Kano High court recently that Neimeth was responsible for managing tests of a new antibiotic during an outbreak of meningitis, government lawyers said.

Pfizer, according to the federal government, is trying to delay proceedings by trying to deny they actually administered the test.

The government claims the drug killed 11 and maimed dozens. Pfizer says its drug test was successful and the children died of meningitis which killed 12,000 that year.

Neimeth currently manufactures some Pfizer products and sells them in Nigeria.

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Babatunde Irukera, counsel to the federal government, said the application to amend their writ of summons was to block all loopholes that might be used by the drug company to subvert the course of justice.

He said: "Pfizer has maintained as part of its defence recently in Kano that the local company that engaged in what we considered as an illegal conduct in Kano in 1996 is no longer part of it. Since we do not agree with that, we had to bring another defendant in the person of Neimeth. So we brought Neimeth in and needed to make some procedural clarification to the process of serving them so that all suspected liable parties are before the court," he said.

He said there was no way Pfizer could deny Neimeth because it sells and manufactures some of its products.

Before the presiding judge, Justice Babs Kuewumi, granted the federal government application, Pfizer’s counsel, Mr Bankole Joel Komolafe, who was holding brief for Mr Afe Babalola (SAN), rejected the application on the grounds that they had not been served with the original writ. "If the application is granted, it means we are shut out from what the original writ is and that will be against the law because no order of the court envisages that amendment can be done without us being served," he said. He later withdrew his objection after an hour-long adjournment.

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Outside the court, Mr Irukera said: "If you say you are not liable to something, why are you objecting to bringing the party liable to the case?"

Pfizer said in statement issued out yesterday by its spokesperson, Mr Ezedi Udom, it intended to "mount vigorous defence" in the civil case against it.

The statement read: "At least five scientific articles published prior to 1996 expressed support for the use of quinolnes (Trovan’s class of drugs) in children as medically indicated and ethically justified."

The case was adjourned to November 13, for hearing.


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