New Jersey’s appellate court today vacated a $2.6 million Accutane inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) verdict and sent the Supreme Court’s Wyeth v. Levine drug preemption decision along for the ride. It all could potentially bring New Jersey’s Accutane Express to the proverbial grinding halt.

In May 2007, a jury in New Jersey’s Accutane court decided that Accutane, an acne drug made by Hoffman-La Roche Inc., has caused Andrew McCarrell’s IBD and resulted in part of his colon being surgically removed. Wyeth appealed.

Of all of Roche’s arguments, one stuck (that’s all it takes, after all!): the defendant wanted to present evidence about how many people used Accutane. The appeals court found that error harmful and said a new trial is in order.

However, the appellate judges also directed the trial court to consider Roche’s argument that McCarrell’s claim is preempted by federal law in light of the Levine ruling. Before the trial got underway, Judge Carol Higbee of the Atlantic County Superior Court had denied preemption. Now, the issue gets to be argued all over again. Accutane’s label was changed at different times; does it fit Levine? I’m getting out the popcorn for this one.

The appeals court dashed all of Roche’s other arguments, so the case could be good to go for a retrial: address preemption, admit the number of Accutane users, present the other evidence, and put it in a jury room to bake.

But the McCarrell ruling also potentially throws a wrench in the works for the rest of the litigation and verdicts, because Judge Higbee’s decisions in McCarrell have been applied to all subsequent cases, which the plaintiffs have won. She’s also denied stays pending the outcome of the McCarrell appeal. Now that McCarrell’s back to Square One, what happens to the other cases?