I’ve been reading the deposition of Dr. Mark Prausnitz, an expert who testified in at least one Duragesic case about the rate that fentanyl can be absorbed through the skin.  This deposition is pretty dry in terms of content.  It certainly doesn’t have any smoking gun testimony about defective fentanyl patches or the Duragesic recall.  Instead, the Duragesic lawyers in this case are trying to determine what he’ll testify to at trial, and to see if they can poke any holes in his theories.

Dr. Prausnitz testified on behalf of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit, and I can only guess that the jury must have believed him because they awarded the plaintiff somewhere in the neighborhood of $13 million dollars if I recall correctly.  What I don’t know is if the jury determined the Duragesic patch was defectively designed, or if the patch in this specific case was defectively manufactured.  I believe that the patch in this case came from one of the recalled lots of Duragesic patches.  Unfortunately, the recall notice came too late to save this person’s life.

Here’s Dr. Prausnitz’ deposition from the fentanyl lawsuit in PDF format.