(Reuters) � Abbott Laboratories Inc. Wednesday said a federal court has dismissed 113 cases in which plaintiffs alleged they were harmed by using the company's Meridia anti-obesity drug, the lion's share of all cases pending in the United States.
Abbott said Cleveland U.S. District Court Judge James Gwin last week ruled that the plaintiffs failed to come forward with sufficient scientific evidence to support the claims.
Abbott spokeswoman Laureen Cassidy said only seven other product-liability cases remain pending against Meridia, all in various state courts.
The public watchdog group, Public Citizen, in 2002 urged U.S. regulators to recall the medicine, saying it had been associated with 29 deaths and hundreds of serious adverse reactions since it was approved in 1997.
Public Citizen said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration knew prior to approving the drug that it significantly raised blood pressure and heart rates in many people and was only minimally effective against obesity.
``We hope that this court decision brings to a stop the alarming and medically inaccurate campaign of fear, confusion and misinformation perpetuated by the plaintiffs' attorneys and certain consumer watchdog groups'' against Meridia, Abbott said in a release.
John Climaco, a Cleveland lawyer who is helping represent the plaintiffs, said he and co-counsel Stanley Chesley of Cincinnati will appeal Judge Gwin's decision.
``We believe Judge Gwin's decision did not reflect available scientific evidence as to the dangerous qualities of this drug,'' he said, adding the decision would not end efforts by public groups to recall Meridia.
Sidney Wolfe, director Public Citizen Health Research Group, said his organization continues to believe the medicine ''is dangerous and should not be on the market.''
Meridia, a prescription weight-loss medication that works on the appetite control center of the brain, had global sales of $275 million last year. It competes with Xenical, an obesity drug sold by Swiss health care group Roche Holding AG