Xarelto Bleeding & Death Cases Heading to Trial

According to U.S. District Judge Fallon, presiding over 6,400 Xarelto lawsuits filed in the federal court system, four Xarelto personal injury and product liability cases will go to trial early next year.

Xarelto Injury Claims Climbing

There are more than 6,400 personal injury, wrongful death and product liability lawsuits centralized before U.S. District Judge Fallon in the Eastern District of Louisiana. The plaintiffs have similar claims that the side effects of Xarelto caused them to experience severe and often fatal bleeding side effects.

The Xarelto cases have been consolidated and centralized in a Multidistrict litigation or MDL, for pretrial proceedings and bellwether trials, which are set to begin in February 2017.

Bellwether trials are common in complex pharmaceutical and medical device litigation, a method to streamline the litigation process and pave a way to a potential settlement.

Xarelto Trial Selection

The first Xarelto bellwether case will be chosen from plaintiffs who originally filed their claims in Louisiana. Plaintiffs selected for this first bellwether trial will be from 50 to 90 years old at the time of the bleeding event.

The second bellwether trial will be those plaintiffs who suffered a brain bleed, or hemorrhagic stroke, which ended in injury or death.

The third trial will include those plaintiffs who developed gastrointestinal bleeding, were 40 to 80 years old at the time of the bleeding event, and who filed a claim in Mississippi federal court, and the fourth Xarelto bleeding case selected will be set in Texas.

Xarelto Bleeding Complications

Xarelto (rivaroxoaban) is a new anticoagulant that was released in 2011 as an alternative to Coumadin (warfarin), which has been the gold standard anticoagulant treatment for the past 60 years.

Xarelto prevents blood clots in patients at risk for deep vein thrombosis in the legs or pulmonary embolism or a blood clot to the lung. Also Xarelto is used to prevent embolic strokes in patients who suffer from Atrial Fibrillation, a common heart rhythm problem.

Xarelto has been touted as easier to use than warfarin, since it does not require monthly blood tests to measure it effectiveness. But, there have been many reports of severe and fatal bleeding complications with Xarelto and other new blood thinners, including Pradaxa and Eliquis.

The lawsuits in the Xarelto litigation have similar allegations, that patients and doctors were not provided warnings about the side effects of uncontrollable bleeding with Xarelto. Read about FDA warnings on Xarelto.

Xarelto unlike Warfarin, has no effective reversal agent to allow doctors to quickly stop the blood thinning effects of the drug.

Plaintiffs claim that Bayer Pharmaceuticals and Johnson and Johnson, the drug makers failed to adequately warn doctors about the lack of a reversal agent.

Pradaxa Lawsuits & Settlements

Pradaxa, was the first of a new class of anticoagulants to be released in October 2010, a year earlier than Xarelto.

More than 4,000 Pradaxa lawsuits were filed by patients who developed similar serious and fatal bleeding injuries. Boeringer Ingelheim, the manufacturer of Pradaxa after years of litigation, finally agreed to pay $650 million in Pradaxa settlements, with an average of about $150,000 per claim.