The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bayer to pay $1.6 billion to end suits over contraceptive device
Women said Essure caused harm, failed to prevent pregnancies.
Bayer agreed to pay $1.6 billion to resolve most of the U.S. litigation over its now-withdrawn Essure contraceptive device, which some women said caused excessive bleeding and pelvic pain or failed to prevent pregnancies.
The deal will resolve about 90% of the 39,000 lawsuits consolidated in courts in California and Pennsylvania, Bayer said Thursday in a statement. The proposed payout is considerably more than the $1.1 billion Bayer paid in 2013 to acquire Conceptus, the company that developed the device. Bayer stopped selling Essure in 2018.
The Essure settlement was largely expected after Bayer said this month that it had reserved nearly $1.5 billion, primarily to settle litigation over the contraceptive implant.
Bayer sought a deal on the Essure claims to remove the “distractions and uncertainties associated with this litigation,” according to its statement.
The company said the settlement didn’t amount to an admission of wrongdoing or liability.
Fidelma Fitzpatrick, the lead plaintiffs’ lawyer in the California Essure litigation, welcomed the agreement, saying in a statement, “Women have suffered for years not only physically, but also emotionally and financially from the often enormous Essure-related
medical bills they face.”
Thousands of women accused Bayer and Conceptus of failing to properly report injury complaints linked to Essure in order to protect hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.
Experts hired by plaintiffs’ lawyers said the under-reporting of injuries — which included unwanted pregnancies, excessive bleeding, organ damage, migraines and miscarriages — kept Essure on the market without adequate safety warnings for a decade, according to files made public by a California judge last month.