Judge Eldon Fallon of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana has assigned early 2017 trial dates for the first four federal Xarelto lawsuits, Reuters reports. Currently, over 1,700 Xarelto bleeding lawsuits are pending in the Louisiana Xarelto MDL.
Xarelto was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2011 for use as an anticoagulant in certain patients at risk for embolic events. The drug’s manufacturers, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Bayer HealthCare, have marketed Xarelto as a safer and easier alternative to older blood thinners like warfarin. But adverse event reports submitted to the FDA reveal that severe bleeding is still a concern with Xarelto. On top of this, there is no FDA-approved remedy to counteract Xarelto in the event of bleeding. Other anticoagulants can be handled with cheap and readily available treatments, such as vitamin K infusions.
Plaintiffs who have filed Xarelto lawsuits claim Janssen and Bayer failed to adequately warn users of the bleeding risk posed by their drug. At the end of last year, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated over 100 Xarelto bleeding lawsuits into a multidistrict litigation. Since then, roughly 1,600 new cases have been added to the litigation, and more are expected to pile up in the coming months.
The first trial in the Xarelto MDL is slated for February 6, 2017, in the Louisiana Eastern District Court, with another scheduled for March 13. Next will come an April 24 trial in Mississipi, followed by a trial on May 30 in Texas.
Speak with your doctor if you have any medical concerns. If you or a loved one suffered from severe bleeding after using Xarelto, contact the pharmaceutical attorneys at Lopez McHugh today for a free consultation. You may be eligible to receive legal compensation through a Xarelto lawsuit.
