Metoclopramide was first described by Louis Justin-Besançon and Charles Laville in 1964, while working to improve the anti-dysrhythmic properties of
procainamide. That research project also produced the product
sulpiride. Laboratoires Delagrange was acquired by Synthelabo in 1991 which eventually became part of
Sanofi. A.H. Robins introduced the drug in the US under the brand name Reglan in 1979 as an injectable and an oral form was approved in 1980. in 1989 A.H. Robins was acquired by American Home Products, which changed its name to
Wyeth in 2002. The drugs were initially used to control nausea for people with severe headaches or migraines, and later used for nausea caused by radiation therapy and chemotherapy, and later yet for treating nausea caused by anesthesia. The first generics were introduced in 1985. In the early 1980s signs began to emerge in pharmacovigilance studies from Sweden that the drug was causing
tardive dyskinesia in some patients. The FDA required a warning about tardive dyskinesia to be added to the drug label in 1985 stating that: "tardive dyskinesia . . . may develop in patients treated with metoclopramide," and warned against use longer than 12 weeks, as that was how long the drug has been tested. In 2009 the FDA required that a
black box warning be added to the label. The litigation was complicated since there was a lack of clarity in jurisdiction between state laws, where product liability is determined, and federal law, which determines how drugs are labelled, as well as between generics companies, which had no control over labelling, and the originator company, which did. The litigation yielded at least two important cases. In Conte v. Wyeth in the California state courts, the claims of the plaintiff against the generic companies Pliva, Teva, and Purepac that had sold the drugs that the plaintiff actually took, and the claims against Wyeth, whose product the plaintiff never took, were all dismissed by the trial court, but the case was appealed, and in 2008 the appellate court upheld the dismissal of the cases against the generic companies, but reversed on Wyeth, allowing the case against Wyeth to proceed. This established an "innovator liability" or "pioneer liability" for pharmaceutical companies. in which the court held in 2011 that generic companies cannot be held liable for information, or the lack of information, on the originator's label. As of August 2015 there were about 5000 suits pending across the US and efforts to consolidate them into a class action had failed. Shortly following the Pliva decision, the FDA proposed a rule change that would allow generics manufacturers to update the label if the originating drug had been withdrawn from the market for reasons other than safety. As of May 2016 the rule, which turned out to be controversial since it would open generic companies to product liability suits, was still not finalized, and the FDA had stated the final rule would be issued in April 2017. The FDA issued a draft guidance for generic companies to update labels in July 2016. ==Society and culture==