J&J’s Janssen hit with $70 million verdict in Risperdal trial: lawyers

A U.S. jury on Friday awarded $70 million to the family of a boy who developed breasts after taking Johnson Johnson unit Janssen Pharmaceuticals’ antipsychotic drug Risperdal, lawyers for the family said.

The jury in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas found that the company failed to warn the boy’s healthcare providers about the risk of gynecomastia and that it intentionally falsified, destroyed or concealed evidence in the case, according to a copy of the verdict form provided by a spokesman for the law firm Arnold Itkin.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Nick Zieminski)