Law360, New York (July 9, 2015, 10:34 AM EDT) -- The learned intermediary doctrine — in which a manufacturer's duty to warn runs to the physician, not to the patient — is one of the most potent weapons in the arsenal for a pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturer faced with product liability litigation. Thus it was indeed "revolutionary"[1] when the New Jersey Supreme Court found that there was a direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising exception to the doctrine in Perez v. Wyeth Laboratory Inc., 734 A.2d 1245 (N.J. 1999). This "bombshell decision"[2] held that, where a pharmaceutical manufacturer directly markets to consumers, the learned intermediary doctrine is not available. However, since the Perez decision was issued in 1999, no court applying New Jersey law has actually imposed liability for DTC advertising and the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions — with West Virginia being the one notable exception — still fully embrace the learned intermediary doctrine. Accordingly, it is fair to say that the DTC exception is the revolution that wasn't, though practitioners should nonetheless still take steps to make sure this remains the case....