Xarelto Lawsuits

In recent years, new oral anticoagulants such as Xarelto, Eliquis and Pradaxa have taken over a lot of the market formerly owned by warfarin, because of their “convenience.”

Marketed as requiring less effort in blood tests and managing food interactions, these new anticoagulants also carry a risk that was not present in warfarin – no antidote to stop uncontrolled bleeding.

Many times the ability to reverse the effects of Xarelto, Eliquis or Pradaxa can be a matter of life or death.

According to the Institute of Safe Medicines Practices (ISMP), a watchdog group, anticoagulant drugs are a “high-risk treatment” and cause bleeding in approximately 15% of patients with atrial fibrillation.

Many physicians are wary of the new anticoagulants, since there is limited evidence on how to manage bleeding in patients taking them since there is no known reversal of the anticoagulant effect.

New anticoagulants such as Xarelto, Eliquis and Pradaxa have been linked to an increased number of uncontrollable blood injuries because there was no approved antidote for patients who use the medication.

In May 2014, nearly 4,000 individuals harmed by uncontrollable bleeding with the drug Pradaxa received $650 million in compensation for their injuries.

More Pradaxa Lawsuits are moving forward today for individuals who were harmed prior to the FDA approval of a Praxbind in October 2015.

Xarelto is at the center of numerous lawsuits claiming personal injury and wrongful death.

Plaintiffs allegedly suffered uncontrollable bleeding which resulted in severe injuries and deaths caused by Xarelto.

Xarelto lawsuits accuse the manufactures of failing to adequately warn consumers and doctors of the side effects that can occur with an uncontrollable bleed and hiding important safety information which resulted in over a hundred deaths and over thousands of fatal injuries.

Almost 20,000 Xarelto lawsuits have been centralized in federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, where Judge Eldon Fallon selected four bellwether cases that resulted in defense verdicts.

A fourth bellwether trial is set to begin on December 2.

On the other hand, a jury in Philadelphia, swiftly found Bayer to be at fault for the gastrointestinal bleeding of Lynn Hartman, the first trial to go forward in Pennsylvania state court.

In December 2017, the jury awarded Xarelto plaintiff Lynn Hartman $28 million – with $26 million of them assigned as punitive damages designed to send a message to Bayer.

This case was later thrown out by a state judge after hearing arguments that the plaintiff’s doctor testified that additional warnings would not have changed her decision to prescribe the drug.

There are than 1,500 cases remaining in state court in Pennsylvania and more cases filed in state court cases in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and California.

The first Xarelto bleeding lawsuits were filed against Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Johnson & Johnson (and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) in early 2014.

This and other Xarelto lawsuits claim that the drug makers were negligent in promoting Xarelto as a safe and effective alternative to warfarin that do not require the same kind of stringent monitoring required of warfarin.

But many experts believe that monitoring is actually more important for Xarelto should catastrophic bleeding events occur, since the drug has no approved reversal agent.

In October 2015, the FDA approved Praxbind, a reversal agent specifically created for Pradaxa.

Xarelto Lawsuits are currently moving forward in the Eastern District of Louisinana presided by the Honorable Kurt D. Engelhardt with the first Bellwether trials set to move forward in February 2017.

Most Serious Complications

The most serious complications with Xarelto and Pradaxa include, but are not limited to, the follow ten (10) conditions:

• Gastrointestinal bleeding
• Stroke
• Rectal bleeding
• Heart Attack
• Hernia Recurrence
• Pulmonary Embolism
• Adhesion (Scar-like tissue that sticks tissues together)
• Epidural
• Hematoma
• Internal bleeding
• Brain Hemorrhage

The risk of bleeding is a problem with all blood thinners, however, with warfarin, doctors can turn to an “antidote” of Vitamin K to stop the bleeding.

Xarelto and Eliquis do not currently have an antidote to stop a severe, life-threatning bleed.

However, five years after approval, in October 2015, an antidote for Pradaxa, Praxbind, was finally FDA approved.