AP
- Johnson & Johnson on Thursday was ordered to pay $4.69 billion to the 22 women who said its talcum baby powder gave them ovarian cancer.
- It was the sixth-largest product-defect award in US history.
- Johnson & Johnson shares were down 2.68% early Friday.
- Watch Johnson & Johnson trade in real time here.
Shares of Johnson & Johnson were sliding Friday morning, down 2.68%, the day after a St. Louis jury awarded $4.69 billion to the 22 women who said its talcum baby powder gave them ovarian cancer.
The jury's award was the sixth-largest product-defect award in US history, consisting of $550 million in compensatory damages and $4.14 billion in punitive damages.
Johnson & Johnson plans to appeal the decision.
A Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman, Carol Goodrich, told Bloomberg the verdict was "the product of a fundamentally unfair process that allowed plaintiffs to present a group of 22 women, most of whom had no connection to Missouri, in a single case all alleging that they developed ovarian cancer."
The company is set to report its second-quarter results on Tuesday. Wall Street is expecting adjusted earnings of $2.07 a share on revenue of $24.4 billion.
Johnson & Johnson shares had slumped 8.56% this year through Thursday.
