Pfizer Reaches Global Settlement in Principle in Depo-Provera Meningioma MDL

What the order does

The litigation, formally captioned In re: Depo-Provera (Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3140, centralizes federal lawsuits alleging that the injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera can cause meningioma — a tumor that forms in the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord — and that the manufacturers failed to adequately warn patients and doctors of the risk.

In the June 15 order, Judge Rodgers reported that the parties had informed the court of a global agreement and took two immediate steps. First, she vacated the trial and pretrial deadlines in the first bellwether case, which had been scheduled for trial on December 7, 2026. Second, she reset the general-causation hearing — which tests whether the plaintiffs' scientific evidence is reliable enough to reach a jury — from June 24-26 to July 27, 2026. The court was careful to note that the agreement, once finalized, will not end the entire MDL: only plaintiffs who meet the eligibility criteria agreed by the parties will have the opportunity to resolve their claims.

What Pfizer has said

In a statement reported by Law360, a Pfizer spokesperson said the company "has reached an agreement in principle with plaintiff leadership in the Depo-Provera MDL that provides an opportunity for MDL plaintiffs to resolve their claims." Pfizer added that the agreement contains no admission of liability or wrongdoing and does not affect cases pending in state courts. The company also said it intends to continue defending any remaining claims and that it maintains Depo-Provera is safe and effective.

An agreement in principle is an early-stage commitment. It means the two sides have agreed on the broad shape of a resolution but are still negotiating and documenting the specifics. It is not a finalized settlement, and it is not a court finding that the drug caused anyone's injury.

How much is the Depo-Provera settlement?

No amount has been released — not as a total figure and not as per-plaintiff or per-tier values. Pharmaceutical settlements of this kind are often structured in tiers that pay different amounts based on factors such as the severity of the injury and the treatment required, but the structure here has not been disclosed. We do not publish projected or estimated settlement figures, because doing so would not be grounded in any verified source. We will update this page as the parties memorialize the terms.

Why this is unusually early

The agreement arrived before several milestones that usually shape mass tort settlements. There has been no ruling on Pfizer's federal-preemption motion — the company's argument that federal drug-labeling law shields it from state-law failure-to-warn claims. There has been no Daubert ruling on the plaintiffs' causation experts. And no bellwether trial has taken place. Most pharmaceutical MDLs reach a global settlement only after one or more test trials give both sides a read on how juries view the evidence.

Two developments preceded the agreement and are widely viewed as having strengthened the plaintiffs' position. In December 2025, the FDA approved a meningioma warning for the Depo-Provera label, more than three decades after the contraceptive was first approved in the United States. That label change matters because the core of Pfizer's preemption defense was that it could not have added such a warning without FDA approval. The scientific backbone of the cases also remained intact: a 2024 study in The BMJ reported roughly a 5.55-fold relative risk of meningioma with prolonged use of the injectable, and a 2025 JAMA Neurology study reported about a 2.43-fold relative risk.