PARIS (Reuters) – The French branch of the pharmaceutical laboratory Merck KGaA announced in a press release on Wednesday that it was indicted for “aggravated deception” in the context of the ongoing investigation into the information provided at the time of the change in the formula of its thyroid hormone treatment Levothyrox in 2017.
“The President of Merck in France was heard by the investigating judge of the health division of the Marseilles Court of Justice on October 18, 2022. At the end of this hearing, the investigating judge decided to put the company Merck in examination in this file for ‘aggravated deception'”, can we read in the press release from the laboratory.
Merck emphasizes in this document that “this indictment does not in any way concern the quality of the new Levothyrox formula” and recalls “that no judgment has been rendered at this stage of the criminal proceedings”.
This indictment “is accompanied by judicial review”, which means “that the investigating judge asked Merck to pay a deposit of 4.3 million euros and to provide a bank guarantee for up to seven million euros,” the communications director of the Merck group told Reuters, confirming information from Le Monde.
Mario-Pierre Stasi, Merck’s lawyer, quoted in the response sent by the press service of the laboratory, judged this placement under judicial control “completely unjustified”, especially since the group has “shown in this file total transparency and a strong desire to cooperate”.
Merck also specifies “reserves(r) the possibility of taking any action it deems necessary”.
For this criminal aspect of the case, a judicial investigation against X for “aggravated deception, involuntary injury and endangerment of others” has been under investigation since March 2018 by the public health center of the Marseille judicial court.
Regarding the civil part of the case, the Court of Cassation confirmed last March the responsibility of the laboratory for “lack of information” about the change in the formula of Levothyrox in 2017.
Merck appealed to the Court of Cassation after the Lyon Court of Appeal found it responsible in 2020 for this “lack of information” and ordered it to pay 1,000 euros in damages to more than 3,000 plaintiffs, thus returning to the initial decision of the Lyon district court on this collective action, in 2019.
The Levothyrox formula was changed in March 2017 in France, where around three million people take this treatment to compensate for a lack of hormone production by the thyroid.
In the summer of 2017, thousands of patients started reporting sometimes very bothersome side effects (fatigue, headaches, insomnia, dizziness, joint and muscle pain, hair loss) and launched several legal actions.
(Report Dominique Vidalon, written by Myriam Rivet, edited by Kate Entringer and Tangi Salaün)