The US pharmaceutical company Abbott was ordered to pay $495 million in compensation and damages after it was found that the company did not adequately warn that its infant formula for premature babies increases the risk of intestinal disease.

Shares of Abbott, the manufacturer of Similac formula, fell by about 5 percent in after-hours trading.

We strongly disagree with the verdict," said a spokesman for Abbott. "We will exhaust all legal means to challenge the faulty decision.

The verdict includes $400 million in punitive damages. Punitive damages can be reduced by the judge or overturned on appeal.

Here's the translated heading in English:

"Already at the beginning of the year, Mead Johnson, which belongs to Reckitt Benckiser based in the UK, was ordered to pay 60 million dollars to the plaintiffs in a similar case. According to analysts from JPMorgan Chase, nearly 1,000 similar lawsuits are pending against the two companies. The stocks of both companies have been declining since the verdict in March.

During a conference call on July 18, Abbott CEO Robert Ford stated that regulators have deemed the company's products for premature infants to be safe and that a public health crisis would arise in every state if these products were no longer available. He said that the company generates about $9 million annually from the controversial products.

The food will not disappear from the hospitals as a result of the ruling, said the plaintiff's lawyer, Jake Plattenberger of TorHoerman Law.

He had accused the company of not sufficiently warning about the increased risk of necrotizing enterocolitis, a life-threatening gastrointestinal disease, for premature infants who received Similac Special Care 24 High Protein formula.

The plaintiff's daughter will have chronic pain and will not be able to eat a normal meal after contracting the disease, Plattenberger said in his closing arguments, as seen on the Courtroom View Network.