Abbott reaches settlement agreements resolving portion of litigation tied to specialty formulas for preterm infants

Abbott has reached agreements with three law firms to resolve the Gill case along with claims involving roughly 2,000 other individuals related to the company’s specialty formulas for preterm infants.

In July 2024, a jury in St. Louis awarded the plaintiff in the Gill case $495 million in damages. Abbott appealed the verdict to the Missouri Court of Appeals in December 2024, but the appeal was rejected. Rather than pursue further appeals or pay approximately $600 million, the amount representing the Gill judgment plus accrued interest to date, Abbott chose to settle the Gill case as well as necrotizing enterocolitis claims brought on behalf of roughly 2,000 additional infants, for a combined total of approximately $670 million.

These settlements represent a resolution of disputed claims and are not an admission of liability in any way. Abbott continues to stand behind the safety of these products and their essential role in helping the medical community care for preterm infants. The Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Pediatrics, NEC Society, and neonatologists and other medical professionals all recognize these products as safe and necessary, and agree there is no reliable scientific evidence connecting them to necrotizing enterocolitis.

The agreements come after a string of favorable court rulings for manufacturers of preterm formula in both federal and state courts, including wins in all three federal Multidistrict Litigation bellwether cases. In July 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld a pretrial judgment in Abbott’s favor in the first federal MDL bellwether case involving its preterm infant formulas. In June 2026, the Illinois Appellate Court overturned a $60 million verdict against Mead Johnson, ruling that the trial court had failed to properly apply the learned intermediary doctrine, which governs a manufacturer’s duty to warn and serves as a defense relevant to a large share of these cases. In March 2026, a Florida state court applying the same doctrine also dismissed claims involving preterm infant formula.

Although Abbott remains confident in the safety of its products and the science backing them, the company believes these settlements serve its long-term interests and represent a constructive step toward substantially resolving the litigation as a whole.

Following these agreements, roughly 1,700 lawsuits remain pending in federal and state courts, involving claims on behalf of approximately 12,700 individual infants. That group includes claims naming both Abbott and Mead Johnson without specifying which manufacturer’s formula was used, individuals diagnosed with necrotizing enterocolitis before ever receiving formula, individuals never diagnosed with the condition at all, and individuals appearing in multiple lawsuits across different jurisdictions. Abbott continues working to identify and remove such claims from the litigation.

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Abbott, litigation, preterm infants