JOHNSON & JOHNSON DEFEATED
First federal Duragesic trail results in $5.5 million award for plaintiff

WEST PAL BEACH, Fla., June 19, 2007 - The family of 28-year-old Adam Hendelson was awarded $5.5 million today in the first federal trial involving the fentanyl pain patch Duragesic.

The Hendelson family sued Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries Janssen Pharmaceutical Products, LP, and ALZA Corp. over Mr. Hendelson's death on Dec. 17, 2003. The case was tried by the law firm of Gulas and Stuckey in partnership with the Dallas-based Heygood, Orr, Reyes & Barolomei like Gulas and Jim Orr represented their respective firms at trial.

"This award has set a precedent for dozens of wrongful death suits that have been filed against Johnson & Johnson related to the Duragesic patch," Mr. Gulas said. "We argued that Adam Hendelson died because the manufacturers of Duragesic failed to do adequate testing and inspection to protect Adam and millions of other consumers. Today a jury concluded that we were right."

On the night of his death, Adam Hendelson was sitting at his computer updating his resume. He wore a Duragesic patch on his right arm to ease the chronic hip pain he suffered as the result of an automobile accident in his teens.

Duragesic has been under attack since February of 2004 when Janssen issued a recal of one manufacturing lot after determining that some patches in that lot might leak along one edge. In April of the same year the company expanded the recall to include five lots - about 2.2 million patches.

The recall resulted in ongoing investigation by the Food and Drug Administration. More information about the FDA Investigatino is available at http://www.fda.gov/.

According to the manufacturer, Duragesic patches "contain a strong opiate in the form of a gel." The recall release from Janssen reads that "exposure to too much medication can occur if the gel leaks directly onto the skin" and that "overexposure may cause potentially lifethreatening complications."

More than 50 wrongful death suits have been filed and are pending trial. The Hendelson case was only the second to go to trial and the first to enter federal court. The first was tried in Houston, Texas, in 2006, and a state jury found in favor of the plaintiff and ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay the family #772,500.

Gulas and Stuckey will take the third case to trial in Augusta, GA., in August, again in front of a federal jury. Gulas and Stuckey is currently involved in 15 wrongful death cases involving the Duragesic patch.

"We got involved in these cases because we believe that the manufacturer is concerned more about profit that about the lives of its consumers." Mr. Gulas said, Duragesic was Johnson & Johnson's No. 6 seller in 2006. "Every Duragesic patch contains a drop of fentanyl about the size of a peanut and that's enough to kill five or six people. With a drug this lethal, they should inspect every patch and work toward the highest standards in pharmaceutical safety."

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