Xarelto Lawsuit Plaintiffs Note Similarities To Pradaxa Cases

BloodThinnerHelp.com reports on the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) and its decision to consolidate 2,800 lawsuits filed against the manufacturers of Xarelto, a new-generation blood-thinning drug. Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Bayer AG are the defendants in all the cases. All plaintiffs involved are alleging strikingly similar complaints that the drug precipitated spontaneous and fatal uncontrollable internal and external bleeding.

The cases under MDL 2592 are fast progressing toward trial under the direction and supervision of the Honorable Judge Eldon Fallon in the Eastern District of Louisiana. Judge Fallon set a deadline of January 11, 2016, to have 40 test cases compiled in a pool from which 4 would be selected as bellwether trials to begin sometime in the spring of 2017. It is expected that the number of cases will continue to expand, as in the month of August 2015 alone, 400 more were added to the MDL for litigation.

The plaintiffs in the Xarelto cases are encouraged by actions taken with a prior released blood thinner called Pradaxa, also a new-generation blood thinner. Pradaxa was released in 2010 by its manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim. Faced with 4,000 lawsuits emanating from more than 3,500 adverse event reports of which 750 were focused on fatalities from the use of the drug, Boehringer Ingelheim opted to negotiate a settlement of $650 million to those plaintiffs who filed claims against the corporation rather than face trial. Plaintiffs in the Xarelto cases are hopeful such a settlement will be proposed by Janssen and Bayer AG.

The MDL cases are not the only ones that have been consolidated for consideration. Another group of 550 cases, also all against Janssen and Bayer, are being heard in a mass tort program in Philadelphia, PA consolidated together by the Court of Common Pleas.

The Osborne firm is offering free consultations to anyone who suffered injury or hospitalization after a bleed while on Xarelto. Call (866) 425-8902 for more information about this release or the Xarelto litigation.