Pfizer enrolled 200 children, between 3 months and 18 years old, in its Trovan trial.
However the lawsuits turn out, no more patients will be exposed to Trovan.
Using its trial data, Pfizer initially applied to use Trovan for pediatric meningitis.
Trovan belongs to a category of powerful antibiotics called quinolones, which have the ability to penetrate tissues to kill bacteria.
Pfizer had hired Juan Walterspiel, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Yale Medical School, in 1994 for Trovan's pediatric clinical development.
Trovan belongs to a powerful class of antibiotics called quinolones, which can have serious side effects, including liver problems and cartilage and tendon abnormalities.
In order to gain maximum market share, Pfizer would have to develop an oral form of Trovan that proved safe for pediatric use.
Pfizer was waist-deep in an ambitious test of Trovan, an antibiotic showing promise against a wide variety of infections, from bronchitis to pneumonia.
Pfizer had already enrolled thousands of adults in Trovan clinical trials but had not tested it yet on children, which posed a problem.
In 1999 Pfizer had to severely limit use of Trovan, a potent antibiotic aimed at many bugs, after it was linked to a dozen cases of liver failure.
Pfizer, which already faces two class-action lawsuits and a government investigation in Nigeria over the Trovan trials, said it would not comment on the substance of the suit because it had not seen the document.
But parents of the dead children in the Trovan group claim they were never shown--or were read--a consent form and weren't told about Trovan's risks or that a proved treatment from Doctors Without Borders was just steps away.
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