Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) shares rose on Friday despite a federal court ruling in Dallas on Thursday which ordered the pharma and its DePuy Orthopaedics unit to pay more than $1bn to six Californian plaintiffs who said they were injured by Pinnacle hip implants.
The jurors found that the metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implants were defectively designed and that the companies failed to warn consumers about the risks.
J&J, which faces more than 8,000 lawsuits over the hip implants, said in a statement it would immediately appeal the verdict and was committed to defending itself and DePuy from further litigation over the Pinnacle devices.
The six plaintiffs were implanted with the hip devices and experienced tissue death, bone erosion and other injuries they attributed to design flaws.
J&J shares were up 0.6% at $111.99 on Friday.