Takeda Pharmaceuticals, a Japan-based drug maker and manufacturer of Actos, currently faces claims from more than 7,000 plaintiffs who have filed Actos bladder cancer lawsuits.

Just six weeks ago, a federal jury in Louisiana ordered Takeda and Eli Lilly (its U.S. distributor) to pay more than $9 billion in damages to a former shopkeeper who developed bladder cancer after taking the drug. This award was the largest a pharmaceutical company has been ordered to pay in one case. At a state level, however, it seems the tide may be changing.

Only weeks after that federal jury decision, juries in two states have both returned defense verdicts in favor of Takeda, finding that Actos was not the cause of those plaintiffs’ bladder cancer. Last week, a Chicago state court jury returned a defense verdict for Takeda, finding that Actos did not cause the bladder cancer suffered by William Whitlatch. The Actos bladder cancer lawsuit involved a wrongful death claim filed by his widow and children.

Takeda collected another win last Thursday when a state court in Las Vegas agreed with the company that Actos didn’t cause bladder cancer in plaintiffs Bertha Triana and Delores Cipriano. Based on the conduct of Takeda Pharmaceutical’s attorneys, showing disrespect for the judge throughout the trial, Triana and Cipriano said they plan to seek a mistrial.

Takeda Pharmaceuticals has now successfully defended its popular diabetes drug in five of six cases.

Actos Bladder Cancer Risk

While all diabetes patients may face a slight increase in the risk of bladder cancer, several studies have suggested that long-term Actos users face an increased risk. “Concerns surfaced in September 2010 after interim data from an ongoing 10-year study found that users of Actos may face an increasing risk the longer the medication is used,” the study found. “Several European countries instituted an Actos recall after a review of insurance data also found the same increased rates of bladder cancer, and increased warnings were required in the United States.”

Bladder cancer has a very high survival rate when caught early. But according to research, Takeda should have known (or did know) about Actos’ risks. Earlier this year, it was determined that Takeda had acted “in bad faith” during pretrial discovery, either negligently or intentionally destroying evidence relevant to the cases. In state court trials that Takeda have won, some ended with juries finding that Takeda should pay damages for failure to warn about the risk of bladder cancer.

Despite Takeda’s wins at the state court level, there still may be future trouble for the company in upcoming MDL trials, as Judge Doherty has determined that juries in the federal cases will all be informed of how the drug maker either “neglected to save vital information or intentionally destroyed it.” The so-called “spoliation instructions” have not been given to all of the juries at the state court level.