AbbVie, maker of the popular testosterone therapy product AndroGel, has expressed dissatisfaction with the federal court’s bellwether trial selection process, Forbes reports. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has chosen AbbVie to defend in the first MDL testosterone lawsuit to go to trial. AbbVie, a defendant in the fast-growing Illinois testosterone therapy MDL, has been instructed to select 32 potential cases to be prepared for bellwether trials, which are scheduled to begin in October 2016.
Nearly 2,500 testosterone lawsuits have been centralized in a multidistrict litigation alleging that testosterone product manufactures, such as AbbVie and Eli Lilly, misrepresented both the health risks and approved uses of their “Low-T” drugs. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), testosterone therapy is approved only for men with medically deficient testosterone, or hypogonadism. In a safety communication earlier this year, the FDA requested that testosterone drug manufacturers change their products’ labels to reflect that testosterone therapy should not be used in men experiencing reduced testosterone due to aging. Last month, the FDA once again expressed its concerns about the possible heart attack and stroke risks of testosterone drugs, stating these potential side effects are not sufficiently outweighed by lifestyle benefits in men without hypogonadism.
According to Forbes, the testosterone multidistrict litigation bellwether trials will be categorized into two groups: those pertaining to blood clotting conditions, such as deep vein thrombosis; and those pertaining to heart attack. AbbVie’s lawyers have until October 31 of this year to choose 16 representative testosterone lawsuits pertaining to each type of alleged side effect.
But AbbVie has expressed concern about the bellwether trial selection process. Forbes writes that last month, “AbbVie urged the court . . . to take an active role in selecting the 32 representative cases, because allowing the lawyers to pick them ‘frustrates rather than facilitates sound pretrial case management.’ The company cited a case involving knee implants made by Zimmer, which it claimed was gridlocked ‘because the parties have used case selection and dismissals strategically to “game” the system by picking unrepresentative cases that have irreconcilably skewed the pool of potential trial cases.’”
Were you or a loved one injured after using a prescription testosterone therapy product? If so, you may qualify to join the growing testosterone MDL. Contact Lopez McHugh today to discuss your case free of charge with one of our qualified attorneys. You may be eligible to receive compensation through a testosterone therapy lawsuit.
