Three companies have agreed to settle hundreds of lawsuits brought over the safety of their low-testosterone drugs, while AbbVie Inc. and Abbott Laboratories Inc., the defendants with the most cases, gear up for more trials.

More than 6,000 lawsuits are pending in federal court against drug manufacturers, claiming the low-testosterone medications caused heart attacks and blood clots. Two of the defendants—GlaxoSmithKline and Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Endo Pharmaceuticals plc—have reached settlements, according to court records and documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Trials against another defendant, Eli Lilly and Co., are on hold until March 31 due to a settlement reached in December. None of the companies have revealed how much the settlements were worth.

That leaves only two defendant groups in the case: Actavis, part of Teva Pharmaceuticals, and AbbVie and Abbott, which started a retrial on March 7 in a case that initially landed a $150 million verdict—entirely in punitive damages—for the plaintiff, Jesse Mitchell. The federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation in Illinois tossed out that verdict as inconsistent (among other things, there was no award to Mitchell of compensatory damages) and ordered a retrial.

“In the MDL, we are still actively litigating against AbbVie and Actavis,” said co-lead plaintiffs attorney Trent Miracle, a shareholder at Simmons Hanly Conroy in Alton, Illinois. He declined to comment on the settlements. “The Mitchell trial is currently underway with numerous additional trials scheduled throughout this year and into next.”

AbbVie has 4,300 cases pending, all but 210 of which are in the federal MDL, according to its Feb. 16 annual report filed with the SEC. With more trials expected this year, AbbVie and Abbott, represented by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, have added lawyers from Shook, Hardy & Bacon to their defense team, according to court records. Spokespeople for AbbVie and Abbott did not respond for requests for comment. Shook partners Sean Wajert, managing partner of the Philadelphia office, and Alicia Donahue, co-chairwoman of the firm's products liability practice group, who is in San Francisco, appeared in the multidistrict litigation on Jan. 18. Neither responded to requests for comment.

On Feb. 23, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly of the Northern District of Illinois ordered trials against GlaxoSmithKline and Auxilium halted for 45 days “so that the parties may devote their efforts to finalizing a master settlement agreement.”

In a Feb. 27 annual report filed with the SEC, Endo, based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, said it had 1,300 low testosterone cases pending before Kennelly and in Pennsylvania state court. Last month, according to the filing, Endo and Auxilium “signed a memorandum of understanding regarding a potential settlement, subject to certain contingencies and conditions.” Although Endo didn't say how much the settlement could be, the company recorded a $200 million increase in legal reserves in the fourth quarter of 2017 “related to testosterone-related product liability matters” and an unrelated antitrust matter.

Endo spokeswoman Heather Zoumas-Lubeski confirmed in an email that “the parties are negotiating the terms of a potential settlement, subject to certain contingencies and conditions. The settlement will not involve any admission of wrongdoing or liability.”

Frances DeFranco, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, which has U.S. headquarters in Philadelphia, also wrote in an email: “The parties are negotiating the terms of a potential settlement, subject to certain contingencies and conditions. The settlement will not involve any admission of wrongdoing or liability.”

On Feb. 6, Kennelly extended a similar stay of trials against Lilly, which settled its cases just prior to a Jan. 29 trial. “We have reached agreement on a settlement framework that provides for a comprehensive resolution of nearly all of these personal injury claims,” Lilly wrote in its Feb. 21 annual report with the SEC. “There can be no assurances, however, that a final settlement will be reached.”

Lilly spokesperson Scott MacGregor declined to comment.

Meanwhile, AbbVie and Abbott are continuing toward more trials, starting on May 7 and June 14. The Mitchell retrial that started this month was in a case that ended with the first low-testosterone verdict. On Dec. 22, Kennelly vacated the award but set a new trial on the fraudulent misrepresentation claim—the only one that the plaintiff won. On Feb. 24, he amended that order so that all the claims would be retried.

David Bernick of Paul Weiss in New York is handling the Mitchell retrial.

AbbVie and Abbott also have moved to toss an Oct. 5 verdict for $140 million. Both companies, represented by Bernick and Dechert counsel Michelle Yeary, of Princeton, New Jersey, switched trial counsel to James Hurst of Kirkland & Ellis for a third trial that ended in a defense verdict on Jan. 26. AbbVie also won a trial in Illinois state court.

The other remaining defendant, Actavis, is set to go to trial on Aug. 6.