Endo Sets Aside $775 Million to Settle Remaining Mesh Lawsuits

(Bloomberg) -- Endo International Plc said it agreed to set aside $775 million to resolve the last batch of lawsuits alleging the company's vaginal-mesh implants eroded in some women, leaving them incontinent and in pain.

Endo's settlement of the remaining 22,000 mesh suits means the company has now set aside more than $2.6 billion to wipe out cases over the flawed medical devices, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The accord comes a year after Dublin-based Endo shut down one of its units that makes mesh implants, used to support internal organs or treat incontinence, after being hit with numerous complaints over the devices.

“We believe it is a very important milestone for Endo to have reached agreements to resolve virtually all known U.S. mesh product liability claims,” Paul Campanelli, Endo's president and chief executive officer, said Monday in a statement.

Other mesh-insert makers, including Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific Corp., still face thousands of claims in the U.S. and worldwide from women who blame the devices for injuring them.

J&J, based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, said in SEC filings in February that it was defending 54,800 cases over its inserts while Marlborough, Massachusetts-based Boston Scientific said that same month it faced 43,000 mesh claims. Both companies have settled some mesh suits.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration increased regulatory restrictions on the mesh inserts after concluding in 2014 they were high-risk. The agency ordered Endo's American Medical Systems unit, J&J and other mesh makers to study organ-damage rates linked to the devices. J&J dropped some of its mesh lines in 2012.

The consolidated AMS cases are In re American Medical Systems Inc. Pelvic Repair Systems Products Liability Litigation, 12-md-02325, U.S. District Court, Southern District of West Virginia (Charleston).

To contact the reporter on this story: Jef Feeley in Wilmington, Delaware at jfeeley@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Sophia Pearson, Joe Schneider