Women and men diagnosed with breast cancer after taking Invega may qualify for substantial compensation.
Emerging scientific evidence confirms a link between antipsychotic medications like Invega (generic: paliperidone) and elevated breast cancer risk due to prolactin hormone disruption. Pharmaceutical giant Janssen Pharmaceuticals—a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary—faces nationwide lawsuits alleging failure to warn patients and physicians about this life-threatening side effect.
On this page, the Invega breast cancer lawyers at Wisner Baum explain the science behind the antipsychotic lawsuits, eligibility criteria, potential settlement values, and more.
If you developed breast cancer after taking Invega (paliperidone), our law firm can help you. Our Invega lawyers represent clients on a contingency fee basis, which means if we don’t obtain compensation for you in a verdict or settlement, you don’t pay. Fill out our case evaluation form today to begin the claims.
Invega (paliperidone) is a pharmaceutical drug used to treat schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder in adults and adolescents. It balances two key brain chemicals—dopamine and serotonin—to help improve clear thinking and stabilize moods.
Invega has been sold as a daily tablet and an injection.
August 1, 2025: Invega attorney Monique Alarcon said in a press release issued this week:
"In what has come to be known as 'the Big Pharma Playbook,' antipsychotic drug manufacturers used a deceptive pattern of off-label marketing to increase sales for medications developed to treat extreme psychotic conditions like schizophrenia.
Because schizophrenia and bipolar disorder affect a small portion of the population, the drug makers sought a bigger market among doctors prescribing the medications to elderly patients with dementia and many others without schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. They were told the potent psychiatric drugs would provide generalized ‘mood stabilization.’
“They did this despite knowing that these conditions can be addressed by other widely available prescription drugs like Abilify (aripiprazole), Clozaril (clozapine), Geodon (ziprasidone), and Seroquel (quetiapine), which are considered safer and more effective.”
Read the press release on our ongoing litigation here.
The three primary allegations in the Invega breast cancer lawsuits are:
Researchers do not yet know the precise pathways by which Invega causes cancer. However, Invega belongs to a class of antipsychotics known to dramatically increase prolactin levels. Chronic prolactin elevation creates a tumorigenic environment through three key mechanisms:
A landmark 2022 study of over 500,000 U.S. women found:
You may be eligible for an Invega lawsuit if you took paliperidone and developed breast cancer.
The best way to determine whether you qualify to join the Invega breast cancer lawsuit is to consult Wisner Baum’s legal team. Our Invega lawyers offer free and fast case evaluations. The questionnaire takes about five minutes to complete. Once we receive your information, we will review it and promptly respond with the next steps.
The deadline to file an Invega breast cancer claim can vary depending on where you live, where you were prescribed the drug, and more. We highly recommend starting the legal process by filling out a case evaluation form as soon as possible. This helps ensure you do not miss the applicable legal deadline to file your case.
A breast cancer diagnosis creates profound physical, emotional, and financial consequences. Women who took Invega and later developed breast cancer should not have to face the financial consequences due to a drug maker’s alleged failure to warn.
When dangerous or defective medications harm people, they most commonly join together in a legal action called a mass tort lawsuit. These cases allow individuals to hold drug companies accountable for injuries caused by their products. While mass torts share similarities to class action lawsuits, they differ in that compensation to each plaintiff in a mass tort reflects their personal damages. So even though many people are suing together, each person’s compensation is based on their specific losses.
One of the most important parts of these Invega lawsuits is recovering economic damages—money to cover the financial losses caused by the alleged harm. These are out-of-pocket costs and financial losses a person suffers because of their injuries. These are real, measurable expenses—like medical bills or lost wages—that can be proven with receipts, pay stubs, or other documents.
Economic damages may include:
The most common out-of-pocket expense is medical costs. This includes all the money spent treating injuries caused by the defective drug. For example:
Future medical expenses (like physical therapy or follow-up surgeries) can also be included if your diagnosis requires ongoing care.
Many people miss work—or can’t work at all—because of harm from a defective drug. Lost income may cover:
Traveling to medical appointments adds up. Economic damages can include:
A breast cancer diagnosis may require help with daily tasks like bathing, cooking, or taking medications. Economic damages can cover:
Each person’s economic damages depend on their unique situation. Courts review:
Drug manufacturers have a duty to make safe products. When they fail, economic damages help injured people:
By covering these costs, the legal system aims to put injured individuals back in the position they were in before taking the harmful drug.
Punitive damages are monetary penalties awarded to the plaintiffs in addition to the compensatory damages listed above. Punitive damages are designed to:
Wisner Baum has won some of the nation’s most highly publicized prescription drug cases. Some of our successes in litigation against Big Pharma include:
Our Invega attorneys offer free and confidential case evaluations. We litigate these lawsuits on contingency, which means if we don’t win, you don’t pay. Let us fight for justice and compensation so you can focus on what matters most: healing.
"Wisner Baum gave exceptional attention to all aspects of the case, detailed inquiry, and tenacious overview of all the information submitted. The paralegals are efficient and diligent. I was completely surprised to find an empathic personal message to take care of my own health during the challenging time of being a full-time caretaker.*"
In May of 2019, the jury in the case of Pilliod et al. v, Monsanto Company ordered the agrochemical giant to pay $2.055 billion in damages to the plaintiffs, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, a Bay Area couple in their 70s. R. Brent Wisner served as co-lead trial attorney for the Pilliods, delivering the opening and closing statements and cross-examining several of Monsanto’s experts. Wisner Baum managing shareholder, Michael Baum and attorney Pedram Esfandiary also served on the trial team in the Pilliod case.
The judge later reduced their award to $87M. Monsanto appealed the Pilliod’s verdict which the California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District denied on August 9, 2021. Monsanto then requested the California Supreme Court review the appeal’s court decision, which the court denied on Nov. 17, 2021. Monsanto (Bayer) then submitted a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court which SCOTUS denied on June 27, 2022, allowing the final judgment of $87M to remain intact.
$289.2 million jury verdict in Monsanto Roundup trial
Wisner Baum co-represented Dewayne “Lee” Johnson in the first Roundup cancer lawsuit to proceed to trial. On Aug. 10, 2018, a San Francisco jury ordered Monsanto to pay $39.25 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages to Mr. Johnson, a former groundskeeper who alleged exposure to Monsanto’s herbicides caused him to develop terminal non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Months after the jury verdict, the judge overseeing the trial reduced the punitive damages to $39.25 million. Mr. Johnson decided to accept the remittitur, bringing the adjusted amount awarded to Mr. Johnson $78.5 million.
Monsanto (Bayer) appealed the verdict and Johnson cross appealed. On July 20, 2020, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict against Monsanto but reduced Mr. Johnson’s award to $20.5 million. The company chose not to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, ending the litigation.
In 2016, Wisner Baum attorney Timothy A. Loranger and six other attorneys in the Plaintiffs’ Management Committee were able to secure a $265 million settlement for victims of the 2015 Amtrak 188 derailment in Philadelphia, one of the largest in the U.S. for 2016.
