Pfizer Agrees to Pay for Defective Heart Valve

A plaintiffs’ law firm said Monday that Pfizer Inc. has agreed to pay $1 million to a Canadian insurance plan to cover medical costs related to the defective heart valves made by Shiley Corp., an Irvine firm it acquired.

Pfizer did not admit to any liability in agreeing to pay the money to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, according to a press release by the Newport Beach law firm of Capretz & Associates.

Defective Shiley heart valves sold between 1979 and 1986 were the subject of a series of class-action lawsuits. Struts that held the valves together fractured in about 450 patients, resulting in about 300 deaths.

Pfizer, which bought Shiley in 1979, sold most of the operations to an Italian company in 1992 and closed the Irvine offices. Pfizer has put aside $500 million for up to 41,000 claimants and expects to pay out $165 million by 2005.