A Nigerian court will hear a motion next month seeking to bar US firm Pfizer from conducting DNA tests to determine compensation for children who died or were deformed in a drug trial, court papers showed on Wednesday.
Lawyers of families of 192 victims of the 1996 drug trials want an immediate halt to the DNA tests that are needed for identification of victims and relatives.
A High Court in the Nigerian capital Abuja said on Monday that unless a special board appointed by the US pharmaceutical giant and the Kano state government to manage the payout fund, “satisfies this court with genuine and incontrovertible facts as to why prayers (application) …should not be granted, this court will proceed in making the said orders” on June 29.
The victims are seeking an order to cease any DNA tests by the board and to restrain it from exercising any judiciary investigative powers to establish who took part in the trials.
Pfizer welcomed the court’s decision which it said would allow it to continue samples collection exercise currently underway in northern Kano state.
“We are pleased with the court’s decision which enables the collection of DNA samples from claimants to continue uninterrupted,” it said in a statement.
It said about 550 claims had been made out of around 200 patients who took part in the trials.
An out-of-court settlement over the 1996 meningitis drug trial that allegedly left 11 children dead and 189 others deformed was reached last year, but the families’ lawyers now want the identification exercise and payouts to cease.
They accuse Pfizer of unfairness for insisting on conducting DNA tests on victims and their families for identification without independent verification.
The families’ lawyers earlier this month wrote to the fund managing board, the Healthcare Meningitis Trust Fund, rejecting the 35-million-dollar compensation.
The Kano state government filed criminal and civil suits in April 2007 against Pfizer demanding 2.75 billion dollars in compensation.
It charged that Pfizer carried out an illegal trial of a meningitis drug, Trovan Floxacin, on 200 children in 1996 during a triple epidemic of meningitis, measles and cholera in which over 12,000 people died.
Pfizer denied any wrongdoing, insisting that the trial was conducted with the consent of the Nigerian government and conformed to ethical guidelines.
After two years of legal wrangling, Pfizer and Kano reached a 75-million-dollar settlement which included 35 million dollars in compensation to the victims. Families of 192 children had sought compensation.