Abbott Laboratories has agreed to pay $670 million to resolve roughly 2,000 claims tied to its specialty formulas for premature infants, bypassing a protracted appeals process after a Missouri jury returned a $495 million verdict against the company in 2024. The settlement, reached with three law firms, covers the landmark Gill case and approximately 2,000 additional individual claims. The litigation centers on allegations that Abbott's cow's milk-based formulas, designed for hospital use, caused necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a severe inflammatory bowel disease that primarily affects premature newborns and carries an estimated mortality rate above 20%. Margo Gill, an Illinois mother whose daughter developed NEC after receiving Abbott's formula, filed the largest underlying claim. A St. Louis jury awarded Gill $495 million in July 2024, and a Missouri appeals court upheld that verdict in May 2026. With accrued interest, the company faced approximately $600 million in damages from the Gill case alone, making a broader settlement covering additional plaintiffs a more favorable option than continued appeals or full payment of the single verdict. The company emphasized that the agreement does not constitute an admission of fault. About 1,700 lawsuits representing approximately 12,700 infants remain pending in federal and state courts, with a Chicago federal judge overseeing a consolidated docket of more than 825 federal cases. William Blair analyst Brandon Vazquez said the Gill settlement could provide precedent for resolving the remaining cases, though timing remains uncertain. Abbott is actively seeking to pare down the case count by weeding out filings it considers redundant or without merit.