A jury in the US state of Missouri has ordered Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to pay $72m (£51m) to the family of a woman who claimed her death was linked to use of the company’s Baby Powder talc.

Jackie Fox from Birmingham, Alabama died of ovarian cancer last year, aged 62, having used the talc for decades.

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“This case clearly was a bellwether and clearly the jury has seen the evidence and found it compelling,” said Stanford University law professor Nora Freeman Engstrom. “The jury was distressed by the company’s conduct.”

However, she said the size of the award was unlikely to survive.

“Big jury verdicts do tend to be reined in during the course of the appellate process and I expect that to be the case here,” she said.