Pfizer faces mounting wave of lawsuits over Lipitor

The pharmaceutical company Pfizer has found itself the subject of an ever-increasing number of lawsuits over allegations it misled people about the possible negative side effects of their popular cholesterol drug Lipitor.

Reuters reports that in the last five months, lawsuits seeking damages related to claims that Lipitor gave women type-2 diabetes surged from 56 to nearly 1,000. The 1,000 cases represent 4,000 women.

The lawsuits claim that Pfizer knew about, but did not disclose such a risk. The lawsuits also say that the dangers affect women more than men, while the drug also provided fewer health benefits to women.

The lawsuits first started in 2012 after the Food and Drug Administration warned that Lipitor and other statins could cause memory loss and increased the risk of developing diabetes.

The first of these lawsuits will be heard in July 2015. The lawsuits will be heard in a single federal court in Charleston, South Carolina.

Pfizer has denied any culpability for the claims and says it will battle them to the fullest in court.

The damages to Pfizer may only just be beginning, as Lipitor is the most popular prescription drug in history. Since its introduction in 1996, Lipitor has earned Pfizer $130 billion. The drug has been prescribed to some 29 million people in the United States alone.

The court battle is sure to be long and torturous. At the same time as the FDA warned about the increased risk of developing diabetes, the agency stressed that it believed the benefits to the heart via the reduction of cholesterol outweighed those risks.

Lipitor is not the only drug that affects men and women differently, making it possible that women are more susceptible to developing diabetes while on the drug than men.

For example, men and women process the drug Ambien differently. Although the recommended dosage the manufacturer suggested for men and women was the same, it was revealed that women process the drug more slowly. This resulted in more toxicity in women's bodies and also meant that women did not need the same amount of Ambien as men to achieve the same effect.

The different effects of the drug on the bodies of men and women will be a central issue in the lawsuits.