Last Updated: 2002-09-13 13:01:00 -0400 (Reuters Health)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A US judge on Thursday denied a nationwide class-action lawsuit against Pfizer Inc. over the diabetes drug Rezulin, which was withdrawn from the market, because the claims do not have enough in common, the company said on Thursday.

New York-based Pfizer has been hit with thousands of lawsuits alleging that Warner-Lambert, which Pfizer acquired in June 2000, failed to inform the public of the drug's health risks. Rezulin was supplied by Warner-Lambert.

Plaintiffs sought to combine into one case claims from around 2 million people who took Rezulin, which was withdrawn from the market in March 2000 after about a hundred people taking the drug either died from acute liver failure or had to have liver transplants.

Judge Lewis Kaplan of the US Southern District of New York ruled that the claims did not meet federal standards of commonality necessary for class certification, Pfizer said.

The ruling applies to certain Federal lawsuits transferred since June 2000 into a single multi-district litigation that now involves more than 4,000 patients.

The judge found that controlled clinical studies of Rezulin demonstrate that the vast majority of patients who were treated with it tolerated the drug well and did not have elevated liver enzymes or liver injury, the company said.

The judge also rejected the plaintiffs' claims calling for medical monitoring of past Rezulin users.

In March, an Oklahoma jury ordered Pfizer to pay $11.55 million in damages to the family of a man who died after taking Rezulin, but the company said it would appeal the verdict.

In January, a Texas jury ordered Pfizer to pay $1.5 million in punitive damages and $23.46 million in compensatory damages to the family of a woman who died after taking Rezulin. The company is also appealing that verdict.

In December, the company settled two other lawsuits brought by Rezulin patients. One settlement came after a Texas jury awarded the plaintiff compensatory damages of $43 million.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration, an estimated 1.9 million patients with diabetes were prescribed Rezulin, with fewer than 100 reporting acute liver failures that led to death or transplant, as of the drug's withdrawal from the market in March 2000.

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